■Mt^^^l  ^'  '-"kl^, 


PRINCETON,     N.     J 


^men^e^//y.  Ou^    ^utffr^  OI/^^aw/^/ 


/^§:^. 


BX    9225     .C7    A3    1853 

Cox,    Samuel   H.    1793-1880 

Interviews 


Shelf.. 


» 


IITERVIEWS: 

MEMORABLE   AND   USEFULi 

FROM    DIARY    AND    MEMORY   REPRODUCED. 


BY  SAMUEL  HANSON^COX,  D.D. 

PASTOR   OF   THE    FIRST    PRESBYTERIAN    CHURCH,   BROOKLYN,  NEW  YORK. 


Yea,  let  God  be  true,  but  every  man  a  liar  ;  as  it  is  written. — Rom.  3  •  4. 
Preach  the  word — instant  in  season,  out  of  season — they  will  not  endure  soumd 
doctrine— they  shall  be  turned  to  fables. — 2  Tim.  4  ;  2— J. 

Diversities  of  gifts,  but  the  same  spirit ;  is  it  therefore  not  of  the  body  ? — 1  Cor. 
4:15. 

Est  modus  in  rebus  ;  sunt  certi  denique  fines 
Quos  ultra  citraque  nequit  consistere  rectum. 

Et  genus  et  virtus,  nisi  cum  re,  vilior  alga  est. 

Multa  petentibus 
Desunt  multa.     Bene  est,  cui  Deus  obtulit 
Parca,  quod  satis  est,  manu. — Horace. 

si  vera  feram,  si  magna  rependam. — Virgil. 

Tl-o-vTo.  5e  5oKtj[xd^eTe*  to  Ka\ov,  Kare^ere. — 1  Tkess.  5  :  21. 

(TT^KCTe  iv  TTJ  TrtcTet,  'ANAPI'ZESQE,  KpaTaiZvaOe .     ndvTa  vfiCiu  cv  ayiiro 

yii-to-eaj.— 1  Cor.  16:  is. 

Under  a  deep  consciousness  of  their  imperfections,  this  is  my  encouragement, 
that  there  are  different  relishes  in  the  world ;  that  something  new,  or  expressed  in 
a  difl'erent  style  and  manner,  peculiar  to  the  writer  himself,  may  have  a  greater 
tendency  to  inform  and  impress  the  readers,  than  more  accurate  performances  on 
the  same  subjects  with  which  they  are  already  acquainted. — Orton. 


NEW    YORK: 

HARPER  &    BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS, 

329    &    331     PEARL    STREET, 
FRANKLIN     SQUARE. 

185  3. 


%*  The  classic  reader  may  perhaps  excuse  this  acknowledged  love  of  mottoes,  if 
good  ones,  and  possibly  be  so  liberal,  or  so  obliging,  as  to  render  the  little  but  im- 
portant monosyllable  re  central  to  one  of  them,  in  a  quasi  Christian  way — of  which 
its  author  had  no  conception,  in  his  piercing  and  wonted  irony,  as  piety^  durable 
riches  and  righteousness,  or  the  authentic  hope  of  salvation  consciously  radiant  in  the 
bosom,  the  bright  and  the  morning-star ;  unless  rigorous  to  insist  that  there,  in  plain 
fact,  it  merely  means  monexj,  cash,  opulence ;  since  the  same  author  elsewhere  des- 
ignates an  almost  poverty  by  vir  exigua  re.  One  might  be  allowed  to  enhance  in- 
finitely the  value  of  the  sentiment,  native  pagan  as  it  is,  by  christianiz.ing  it,  even 
were  we  to  yield  lo  the  temptation,  seriously  felt,  to  substitute  sp  for  r  in  that  bilit- 
eral  word  of  a  justly  satirical  hexameter  line.  It  would  then  teach  that  neither  race, 
though  honored  in  ancestral  fame,  nor  wealth  ever  so  abounding,  nor  general  virtue 
itself,  however  coUauded  and  illustrious  of  its  graceless  sort,  or  all  of  these  in  mo- 
nopoly combined,  could  ever  begin  to  be  a  proper  substitute,  or  a  tolerable  succeda- 
neum,  or  a  fitting  compensation,  or,  in  any  sense,  a  decent  apology  for  one  mo- 
ment, even  ill  thought,  for  the  divine  good,  substantial,  supreme,  eternal ;  which  is 
at  last  identified  forever  with  hope  in  Jesus  Christ,  our  Redeemer  and  our 
Savior.  This,  in  connection  with  the  truth  of  the  Gospel  as  related  to  hope, 
that  precious  truth  in  its  integrity  and  its  unity  preserved,  as  the  only  proper  medi- 
um of  hope,  as  God  gave  it  to  us — not  to  alter,  but  to  cherish  and  obey,  to  appre- 
ciate, and  enjoy,  and  difl'use,  this  is  properly  the  normal  sentiment  of  this  volume, 
as  it  should  be  the  normal  sentiment  of  every  human  being  I  It  is  for  us  the  nor- 
mal sentiment  of  God. 

Et  qenus  et  virtus,  nisi  cum  spe,  vilior  alga  est. 


Entered,  according  to  the  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  fifty-three,  by 

Harper   &   Brothers, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


CONTENTS. 


INTERVIEWS, 

I.  WITH  REV.  DR.  CHALMERS 29 

H.  WITH  REV.  DR.  EMMONS 145 

in.  WITH  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS 213 

IV.  WITH  TWO  PSEUDO-APOSTLES 275 

V    WITH  A  FASHIONABLE  LADY  AT  CALAIS,  FRANCE 301 

PRECEDED    BY    REFLECTIONS    MISCELLANEOUS,    IN    AN    INSCRIPTION    TO 
TWELVE  KULINO  ELDERS  IN  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 5 


INTERVIEWS. 


INSCRIPTION PRELIMINARY  REFLECTIONS. 

To  the  following  named  Ruling  Elders,  in  different  con- 
gregations of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States 
of  America : 
Hon.  Joseph  C.  Hornblower,  LL.D.  Ex- Chief-justice  of 

the  State  of  New  Jersey, 
Hon.  Daniel  Haines,  Ex-Governor  of  the  same, 
Hon.  William  Jessup,  LL.D.  Pennsylvania, 
Hon.  William  Darling,  do. 

Hon.  John  L.  Mason,  New  York  city, 
Peter  Roe,  Esq.  New  York  State. 
Lowell  Holbrook,  Esq.  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 
Fisher  Howe,  Esq. 
Hon.  Truman  Smith, 
Thomas  S.  Nelson,  Esq. 
Richard  J.  Thorne,  Esq. 
John  F.  Trow,  Esq. 

Honored  and  beloved  Brethren  : 

Permit  the  liberty  taken  by  no  unfriendly  pen,  in  this  ar- 
ray of  your  names  in  the  portico  of  my  humble  building ; 
even  if  it  should  prove  that  the  vestibule  is  better  than  the 
edifice,  to  which  it  ought  to  be  only  a  fitting  introduction. 

My  estimate  of  you  as  Christians,  and  as  officers  in  the 
Church  of  Christ,  is  such  as  to  account  for  the  distinction,  I 
hope  not  inglorious,  which  I  have  spontaneously,  and  with- 
out all  knowledge  of  your  own,  ventured  to  award  you. 

This  volume  I  inscribe  to  you,  but  dedicate  it  to  God  and 


do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

«»  ESTIMATION A    JURY. 

our  country  ;  respecting  and  esteeming  you  too  much  to  flat- 
ter you,  and  myself  too  much  to  be  self-degraded  by  the  at- 
tempt. But  what  is  here  said  will  be  more  acceptable  as 
the  fruit  of  brotherly  kindness,  saluting  you  as  Americans, 
as  Presbyterians,  as  ecclesiastical  officers  iii  my  own  beloved 
Church,  as  fellow-Christians,  and  as  personal  friends,  hon- 
ored and  beloved. 

All  the  favor  I  ask  of  you  is,  to  give  my  work  a  fair  pe- 
rusal ;  and,  if  you  think  it  of  any  value,  be  its  friends,  its 
patrons,  if  you  please,  only  so  far  as  a  sense  of  duty,  and  the 
pleasure  of  a  good  conscience,  will  allow.  Be  as  lenient  as 
you  can  toward  its  imperfections  and  its  faults.  More  I  dare 
not  ask  or  desire — unless  it  be  the  boon  of  your  prayers  to  God 
for  me,  that  in  all  I  do,  in  these  residuary  terms  of  an  ex- 
tended public  life,  and  in  this  present  enterprise,  I  may  be 
favored  with  the  incomparable  good  of  his  own  benediction, 
however  greatly,  very  greatly,  undeserved  I 

In  this  impanneling  of  a  jury — not  a  coroner's — in  the 
matter,  the  number  twelve  was  reached  -without  any  partic- 
ular design — certainly  with  no  reference  to  the  twelve  pa- 
triarchs, or  the  twelve  apostles  ;  nor  to  the  twice  twelve 
Presbyters,  sitting  on  as  many  subordinate  thrones,  round 
about  THE  THRONE,  clothcd  in  white  raiment,  and  having 
on  their  heads  croivns  of  gold.  Other  dozens,  single  and 
double,  recur  to  my  thoughts,  by  the  wonderful  law  of  sug- 
gestion or  association  ;  but  I  dismiss  them  as  useless  to  my 
purpose,  and  say,  that,  viewing  you  as  the  honorable  repre- 
sentatives of  that  general  class  of  my  countrymen  for  whom 
more  especially  this  is  written,  I  commend  the  production 
to  your  favor,  as  well  as  your  notice  ;  in  the  full  persuasion 
that  if,  in  the  main,  it  wins  the  approval  of  such  a  Bench 
OF  Ruling  Elders  in  the  Church,  the  writer  may  be  much 
consoled  with  the  hope  that  its  mission  and  its  ministry,  in 
other  spheres  of  our  social  and  even  of  our  national  commu- 
nity, may  hereafter  prove  both  acceptable  and  beneficial. 


SELECTION LEVITY  OF  READERS.  7 

In  the  preparation  of  these  Interviews  I  have  taken  some 
liberties,  and,  at  the  same  time,  have  observed  certain  neces- 
sary restraints.  While  not  always  the  order,  and  seldom  the 
exact  phrases  and  style  of  conversation,  could  be  reproduced 
or  remembered,  I  have  endeavored  to  violate  no  rule  of  sub- 
stantial truth  and  justice,  in  the  use  of  my  own  method,  and 
the  costume  of  my  own  thoughts,  for  the  most  part.  Many 
items  and  topics  are  intentionally  omitted,  as  less  proper  or 
useful  for  the  public  eye.  Possibly  it  were  wiser  to  have 
omitted  more.  Of  those  inserted,  I  have  chiefly  regarded  use- 
fulness, and  aimed  to  select  the  best  for  my  purpose,  and  to 
treat  them  in  some  historical  or  natural  order  ;  but  to  care 
for  substance  and  principle,  more  than  for  form  and  show. 
Much  on  this  plan,  we  know,  are  written  the  inspired  biog- 
raphies of  the  Savior,  the  gospels  of  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke, 
John  ;  and  also  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  The  parables  of 
the  Savior  are  of  their  own  class,  as  apologues,  designed  to 
give  instruction,  without  any  pretension  to  historical  authen- 
ticity. 

Where  I  have  given  nearly  or  quite  the  very  words  of  a 
speaker,  in  some  express  relation  or  place,  the  reader  will 
probably  be  able  to  identify  it,  from  its  emphatic  nature  and 
its  attending  circumstances. 

That  the  age  is  given  to  superficial  reading,  or  rather  to 
pleasure  without  reading  at  all,  and  still  less  to  thinking, 
were  this  possible,  is  generally  too  obvious  for  any  thing  but 
lamentation  and  epitaph  !  It  may  be  a  reason,  however,  with 
them  that  write  for  the  public,  why  one  should  aim  to  take 
their  attention,  et  utile  cum  dulci  miscere,  with  the  things 
that  interest  and  amuse,  especially  if  in  this  way  he  may 
hope  ultimately  to  profit  them.  Reading,  and  thinking,  and 
praying,  in  combination,  seem  indeed  to  be  less  characteris- 
tic even  of  the  good,  in  our  day,  than  of  the  fathers  of  the 
previous  age  or  century. 

The  liberties  taken  in  these  writings,  describing  the  inter- 


8  A    POSSIBILITY MOTIVES. 

VIEWS  to  which  they  refer,  are  chiefly  iu  the  way  of  ampli- 
fication, without  perversion,  or  misrepresentation  of  facts,  sen- 
timents, or  characters.  Here  the  writer  has  to  do  also  with 
the  reader  :  to  prepare  his  mind  gradually  and  duly  to  com- 
prehend the  narrative,  as  well  as  to  come  to  just  conclusions 
respecting  it ;  and  in  all,  to  set  the  parts  in  due  array  and 
sequence,  for  the  proper  symmetry  and  eil'ect  of  the  work. 

The  selections  made,  from  many,  are  in  obedience  at  once 
to  the  counsels  of  judicious  friends,  and  to  my  own  judgment 
in  respect  to  what  is  interesting  and  useful.  I  at  first  intend- 
ed to  give  at  large  my  two  interviews  with  the  late  eccen- 
tric and  original  Edward  Irving,  of  London  ;  one  with  a 
wealthy  and  learned  Jew,  of  the  house  of  Rothschild,  in  Ger- 
many ;  one  with  an  intelligent  and  polished  foreigner,  a  Ro- 
manist, in  a  stage-coach,  before  steam-travel  existed  between 
New  York  and  Philadelphia ;  one  in  a  rail-car  in  Western 
Pennsylvania,  with  a  self-confident  and  skeptical  merchant 
of  Philadelphia,  supported  by  a  Jesuit  priest  of  Rome  ;  and 
several  with  men  who  consulted  me  on  the  most  interesting 
topic  of  all  human  inquiry —  What  rmist  I  do  to  be  saved  ? 
But  of  these  it  may  here  only  be  said,  that  the  present  vol- 
ume would  be  sufficiently  large  without  them  ;  and  also  that, 
if  the  present  is  well  received,  and  life  and  health  are  spared, 
another  volume  may  be  hereafter  prepared  for  the  public. 

While  the  forms  and  the  laws  of  social  intercourse  are  not 
to  be  violated  at  random,  yet  thei'e  is  an  excess  of  etiquette 
sometimes  imposed,  at  the  expense  of  honesty,  to  which  a 
Christian  must  refuse  subserviency.  In  any  writing  on  the 
subject  of  religion,  if  the  author  ought  to  remember  that  thou 
God  scest  me,  so  should  he  deal  honestly  with  his  readers, 
and  have  the  testi)7io}iy  of  his  conscience  for  his  rejoicing, 
that  in  simjMcity  and  godly  sificerity,  not  icith  Jlcshly  icis- 
dom,  but  by  the  grace  of  GOD,  he  has  his  conversati&n  in 
the  icorld,  a?id  more  abundanthf  toward  tlieni.  I  may  here 
remind  myself,  at  least,  that  there  is  no  reason  or  sense  in  at- 


0EN8UKE3 WHAT    THE    WORLD    IS.  9 

tempting  to  propitiate  the  critics,  to  favor  this  or  any  better 
production  of  its  class.  "  To  attempt  to  disarm  the  severity 
of  criticism  by  humiliation  or  entreaty,  would  be  a  hopeless 
task.  Waving  every  apology,  the  author,  therefore,  has  only 
to  remark,  that  the  motives  of  a  writer  must  ever  remain  a 
secret ;  but  the  tendency  of  what  he  writes  is  capable  ol"  be- 
ing ascertained,  and  is,  in  reality,  the  only  consideration  in 
which  the  public  are  interested."*  But  how  often  do  the 
public  go  a  motive-hunting,  alike  careless  and  ignorant  of  the 
character  or  tendency  of  the  production  I 

If  to  some  my  free  remarks  on  several,  and  even  a  great 
variety  of  topics,  and  the  censures  I  have  felt  required  bold- 
ly, but  wisely,  to  utter,  should  seem  to  present  the  work  as 
characteristically  a  fault-tinder,  I  only  say  that  it  is  a  very 
faulty  world  in  which  we  live  ;  and  how  any  well-informed 
writer  can  deal  with  it  honestly  and  truthfully,  or  even  with 
the  Church  of  (jrod,  in  its  present  schisms  and  its  manifold 
imperfections,  and  not  find  fault  with  it,  that  is,  with  its 
constituent  population,  their  manners,  their  ways,  their  opin- 
ions, their  maxims,  and  their  practices,  I  candidly  acknowl- 
edge that  I  do  not  know  I  So  far  as  its  character  may  be 
deemed  polemical,  while  this  is  in  a  qualified  sense  sincerely 
regretted,  yet,  in  such  a  world  as  this  (see  1  John,  5  :  19. 
18-20)  I  feel  honestly  compelled  to  it.  This  has  been  the 
crushing  burden  of  the  man  of  God  in  all  ages.  The  tender 
and  refined  spirit  of  the  weeping  •prophet  recoiled  from  his 
duties  with  horror  and  amazement,  and  even  with  extrava- 
gant expressions  of  almost  disobedience  and  seemingly  im- 
pious refusal;  as  the  record  shows,  Jer.  20  :  14-18.  7-13. 
He  exclaims  elsewhere.  Woe  is  me,  mxj  mother,  that  thou 
hast  home  me  a  man  of  strife,  and  a  man  of  contention  to 
the  whole  earth,  15  :  10.  If  there  exists  a  frightful  contro- 
versy between  the  footstool  and  the  throne,  between  our  God 
and  his  own  human  creatures,  so  that  every  one  of  them  is 
*  Robert  Hall. 
A2 


10  BENEVOLENCE TRUE    AND    FALSE. 

his  enemy  by  vickccJ  trorks,  and  so  continues  till,  by  renew- 
ing grace,  he  obeys  cordially  the  Gospel,  then — we  must 
testify  and  defend  these  positions ;  then — God  is  not  more 
strong  than  right,  and  they  not  more  weak  than  wrong  ;  then 
— any  religion  that  denies  this  is  plainly  false  ;  then — to  dis- 
parage the  fact,  or  obscure  the  doctrine  of  it,  is  no  more  phi- 
lanthropy than  it  is  piety  ;  then — the  friends  of  error  are  the 
enemies  of  mankind,  and  wisely  to  love  a  human  being  im- 
plies that  we  fuithl'iilly  deal  with  them  in  the  truth  ;  then  — 
in  doing  our  duty,  with  the  kindest  motives  and  in  the  wis- 
est way,  it  were  no  strange  thing  that  we  should  become 
specially  interested  in  the  richest  of  the  beatitudes  spoken  by 
our  blessed  Savior  in  his  sermon  on  the  Mount.  Matthew, 
5  :  10—12.  The  world  is  inimical  to  God  and  true  religion ; 
hence  the  varying  systems  of  falsehood  that  have  been  in- 
vented, because  the  truth  does  not  suit  the  world — the  truth 
is  not  good  enough  for  it  I  Error  or  nothing,  is  practically 
the  motto  of  the  w'orld.  Hence  we  must  censure  it.  There 
is  properly,  and  safely,  and  hopefully,  no  other  way.  The 
greatest  fault-finder,  or  reprover,  as  I  should  say,  that  ever 
spoke  of  it,  or  spoke  to  it,  was  our  blessed  Lord  and  Savior, 
Jesus  Christ  himself.  To  some  of  his  own  household  he  said, 
The  icorld  can  not  hate  you,  but  me  it  liateth,  because  I 
testify  of  it,  tluit  the  xvorks  thereof  are  evil.  And  to  his 
own  disciples,  the  apostles  of  his  kingdom  :  If  the  ivorhl  hate 
you,  ye  know  that  it  hated  me  before  it  liated  you.  If  ye 
were  of  the  world,  the  world  would  love  its  own  ;  but  be- 
cause ye  are  not  of  the  ivorld,  but  I  have  chosen  you  out  of 
the  tcorld,  therefore  the  xvorld  hateth  you.  A  few  such 
scriptures  as  these,  and  as  those  I  will  quote  presently,  may 
convince  us  that  one  might  possibly  be  both  kind  and  right 
in  such  censures  ;  but  the  world  are  not  convinced,  because 
they  are  not  ingenuous  ;  they  love  not  the  truth,  and  they 
are  deceived  by  the  sin  they  do,  to  call  evil  good,  and  good 
evil ;  to  put  bitter  for  stveet,  and  sweet  for  bitter,  and  to 


PRAYER IMPARTIALITY.  11 

hold  on  their  erratic  and  reckless  way,  with  no  remorse,  no 
apprehension,  no  self-examination,  no  faith  in  the  word  of" 
God,  no  prayer  for  Divine  illumination,  and  no  sense  of  their 
great  need  of  it  from  HIM,  who  made  for  each  other  both 
the  mind  and  the  Bible,  and  who  knows  through  his  truth 
how  to  conciliate  the  former  to  the  latter,  with  gladness  and 
sincerity,  in  his  own  wonderful  salvation,  and  by  his  own 
triumphant  grace. 

The  other  scriptures  to  which  I  refer,  may  all  be  read  in 
the  twenty-eighth  of  Proverbs  ;  and  however  disparaged  by 
the  frivolous  and  the  vain,  they  will  by  you,  my  brethren, 
be  appreciated  as  the  truth  of  the  Eternal  God.  They  that 
forsake  the  law,  jJ7'aise  the  wicked ;  hut  such  as  keep  the 
laiv,  contend  tcith  them.  Evil  onen  tmderstand  not  judg- 
ment;  but  they  that  seek  the  Lord,  comparatively,  under- 
stand all  things.  Better  is  the  poor  that  walketh  in  his 
uprightness,  than  he  that  is  perverse  in  his  ways,  though 
he  be  rich.  When  righteous  men  do  rejoice,  there  is  great 
glory ;  but  when  the  %oicked  rise,  a  man,  who  is  a  man,  a 
man  of  God,  is  hidden.  He  that  covereth  his  sins  shall 
not  p)rosper  ;  but  ivhoso  confesseth,  and  forsaketh  them,  shall 
have  mercy.  Whoso  walketh  upriglithj  shall  be  saved;  but 
he  that  is  perverse  in  his  ways  shall  fall  at  once.  To  Jiave 
respect  of  persons  is  not  good  ;  because  for  a  piece  of  bread 
that  man  ivill  transgress.  He  that  rebuketh  a  man  shall 
afterivard  find  more  favor  than  he  that  flatter eth  xvith  his 
tongue.  He  that  trusteth  in  his  own  heart  is  a  fool ;  but 
whoso  walketh  ivisely,  he  shall  be  delivered. 

Many  religionizers  of  the  present  day  either  desire  no  food 
for  their  souls  or  their  thoughts,  in  the  way  of  preaching  or 
printing,  and  so  of  hearing  or  reading,  or  they  desire  any 
thing  rather  than  the  mind  enlightened,  rectified,  exercised 
in  truth,  convinced  by  evidence,  habituated  to  reason  of 
righteousness,  temperance,  and  judgment  to  come,  and  edi- 
fied luminously  in  the  faith  of  God's  elect.     They  desire  to  be 


12  GLOOM    IN    RELIGION. 

soothed,  charmed,  conciliated  by  something  musical,  spirited 
away  iVom  themselves,  and  indeed  from  all  the  rugged  realities 
of  tlie  icords  of  truth  and  soberness,  and  by  some  super-sens- 
uous, or  refined  and  sensual  minstrelsy,  to  be  ecstatically 
ravished  from  the  consideration  of  all  substances,  and  facts, 
and  events,  and  so  stealthily  serenaded  into  heaven,  or,  rather, 
into  a  refreshing  and  sleepy  oblivion  of  all  things  created 
and  uncreated  I  This  is  quietism,  or  inanition,  or  spiritual 
apepsy ;  not  the  way  in  which  the  wise  virgins  in  the  para- 
ble forecasted  the  alarm  at  midnight,  and  anticipated  with 
due  jireparation,  Avith  action  and  energy,  the  advent  of  the 
bridegroom.  If  such  fanciful  and  fashionable  stufi'  be  piety, 
then  the  greatest  of  all  difibrence  between  classes  of  men 
may  not  appear,  or  be  shown — between  the  wise  and  the 
foolish,  the  sheep  and  the  goats,  the  wheat  and  the  chaff, 
them  t/uit  arc  saved  and  them  that  perish. 

In  every  case,  man,  that  is  born  of  woman,  is  by  nature, 
as  a  grand  and  an  awful  matter  of  fact,  and  hence  as  a  car- 
dinal principle  in  religion,  so  acting  wrong,  and  so  needing 
THE  GREAT  MORAL  CHANGE,  in  his  thoughts  and  his  principles 
of  action — so  great  his  need  of  this,  that  the  alternative,  in 
every  case,  is  sure  to  be  deceit,  deterioration,  and  perdition. 
This  is  the  plain  truth  of  the  Bible.  And  shall  we  seem  to 
blink  it,  because  it  is  disagreeable  to  the  world  of  the  un- 
godly ?  Hence  it  is  that  they  tell  us  how  gloomy  is  religion ' 
how  melancholy  it  makes  them  !  they  can  not  endure  any 
thing  so  doleful  !  It  gives  them  "  the  blues."  It  actually 
injures  their  health.  So  they  insulted  Noah,  before  the  flood 
came  and  destroyed  them  all. 

Strange  that  they  must  ever  confound  as  one  two  things 
of  all  others  in  the  universe  the  most  contrary  and  antago- 
nistic to  each  other  I  It  is  sin  that  is  so  gloomy  ;  and  sin 
IS  not  religion  I  If  this  makes  hell,  is  it  the  other  that 
makes  heaven  ?  What  impious  nonsense  !  Religion  makes 
heaven,  holiness,  happiness,  and  hope.     Of  its  essence  God 


SENTIMENTAL    FALLACIES.  13 

himself  is  alone  the  infinite  and  the  perfect  impersonation  ; 
and  HE  is  over  all,  blessed  forever. 

There  is  an  element  or  a  leaven  of  false  religion,  rampant 
in  some  places  of  our  great  country,  which  indeed  I  view  as 
spiritual  poison,  fantasy,  and  death — as  infidelity  baptized, 
and,  next  to  popery  itself,  the  master-piece  of  Satan.  I  refer 
-to  neology  or  the  rationalistic  philosophy,  which,  for  agree- 
ment with  Scripture,  is  almost  as  good,  but  not  as  honest  or  as 
stupid  as  Islamism  ;  and  for  sustaining  the  hope  of  immor- 
tality, about  as  fit  and  proper  as  the  location  of  a  massive 
temple  of  marble  on  the  summit  of  a  pyramid  of  sand.  And 
amid  the  spasms  and  the  inventions  of  souls,  in  their  deep  un- 
rest, since  the  impracticable  desideratum  seems  to  be  to  get 
"  a  religion  that  is  fiit  for  gentlemen  and  for  scholars,"  accord- 
ing to  the  detestable  King  James  and  his  base  progeny,  we 
may  comcidently  observe,  that,  as  it  is  no  part  of  their  wis- 
dom, or  their  purpose,  or  their  effort,  to  obey  the  gospel,  they 
generally  alternate  electively  between  neology  and  puseyism  ; 
not  remarkably  pertinacious  which  to  choose,  but  governed 
there  by  circumstances.  In  either  way  they  manage  to  escape 
scriptural  regeneration  ;  and  this  seems  to  be  their  grand 
policy,  their  chief  desideratum,  as  it  will  be  also  their  doom. 
If  it  happens  to  be  convenient,  since  it  is  worldly  respecta- 
ble, even  more,  in  some  circles,  oh  I  Churchism  is  all  at  once 
their  divinity,  and  better  men  by  myriads  are  organically 
consigned  serenely  to  the  desperation  of  "  uncovenanted  mer- 
cies ;"  or,  if  the  convenience  appears  probably  or  plainly  the 
other  way,  they  can  as  easily,  with  tact,  and  with  some  more 
taking  show  of  philosophy,  be  neologists  or  pantheists.  In- 
stantly the  Bible  becomes  a  museum  of  transcendental  mys- 
tifications, and  Christ  is  an  ambiguity  sublime  ;  as  created 
only ;  or  possibly,  by  hypothesis,  ideally,  some  way,  for 
aught  they  know  or  care,  uncreated  ;  as  dying  for  us,  some- 
how, by  imprudence  or  accident,  as  "  he  was  a  young  man;" 
but  not,  by  all  means,  as  being  honestly  and  really  the  pro- 


14  IRRELIGION PRIDE. 

pitiationfor  our  sins.  Thus  their  Christology  is  little  bet- 
ter than  heathenism  in  a  mist.  It  is  a  disgrace  to  their  in- 
tellectual manhood  and  their  erudite  pretensions,  as  well  as  to 
their  consistency  and  moral  honesty.  In  fact,  we,  who  know 
them,  know  that  they  are  either  infidels,  or  that,  with  no 
more  faith  than  they,  all  their  religious  pretension  is  only 
contemptible,  even  as  "  a  religion  fit  for  gentlemen  and  schol- 
ars." If  a  man  desires,  on  the  whole,  to  have  a  rehgion  that 
he  can  carry  to  ruin  and  despair  along  with  him,  let  him  pre- 
tend to  take  that  of  God,  in  some  strange  way,  and  then 
change  it,  and  change  it,  in  some  other  way,  till  it  about  suits 
the  heart,  that  is  deceitful  above  all  things,  and  desperately 
tricked.  And  if,  on  the  wisdom  and  the  safety  of  such  a 
course,  "  for  gentlemen  and  scholars,"  he  cares  to  read  an 
inspired  commentary,  he  may  easily  find  one  in  the  New  Test- 
ament ;  he  may  be  specially  commended  to  1  Cor.  1  :  18-31. 
But  if  he  reads,  and  honestly  digests,  especially  if  he  believes 
what  God  says  to  him  in  that  luminous  passage — rebuking 
then  and  there  the  heathenistic  rationalism  of  the  arrogant 
Greeks,  it  may  be  to  him  not  only  an  amusing  novelty,  but 
the  means  of  the  Spirit,  used  and  blessed  to  his  salvation. 
He  will  then  find  the  Bible  a  new  book,  only  because  he  be- 
comes a  new  man  ;  and  many  a  firmament  of  glories,  in  the 
universe  of  the  new  creation,  will  it  open  to  his  wonder,  his 
adoration,  and  his  joy. 

Another  powerful  element  of  evil,  by  which  many  of  our 
contemporaries  are  ruined  for  eternity,  is  found  in  religious 
ignorance  or  vacuity,  mingled  with  civic  and  social  assump- 
tion, co-working  with  pride,  in  a  land  where  we  are  all 
"  born  equal,"  and  where  the  illiterate  may  strut,  as  well  as 
vote,  on  the  same  platform,  with  intelligence,  good-breeding, 
and  piety.  Such  men  are  too  consequential  ever  to  own,  if 
indeed  they  know,  their  want  of  knowledge,  or  to  learn  the 
value  of  the  learning  that  others  have.  They  are  all  for  lev- 
eling downward  ;  and  consider  the  glorious  "  aristocracy"  of 


RIGHT    EEAUING.  15 

true  religion  as  an  odious  monopoly,  offensive  to  their  ideas 
of  republican  equality.  Instead  of  making  themselves  like 
God,  they  make  a  God  that  is  like  themselves.  Hence  they 
hate  and  discredit  the  man  of  Christian  piety,  not  relishing 
to  think  that  the  7-iglitcous  is  more  excellent  than  his  neigh- 
bor. And  in  this  connection,  there  is  often  seen  a  reckless 
vulgarity  of  sinning,  that  justly  offends  God,  as  well  as  his 
people ;  and  for  which,  if  the  sinners  that  perpetrate  and  prac- 
tice it,  only  knew  how  much  it  will  cost  them  in  the  end,  they 
might,  perhaps,  be  brought  to  the  conclusion  that  they  could 
ill  aflbrd  to  pay  it — nor  do  they  dream  how  soon,  how  swift- 
ly flying  on  wings  of  flame,  the  reckoning-day  will  overtake 
them  I  For  all  such,  if  we  could  procure  or  provide  some 
instructive  and  versatile,  as  well  as  sound,  and  thorough,  and 
pungent  reading,  that  might  occupy  their  attention,  a  good 
end  would  be  answered.  Such  reading  must  be  without  cant 
and  commonplaces  ;  without  all  fanaticism  and  affectation  ; 
original,  natural  in  manner,  manly  and  true  in  thought,  and 
so  blending  the  charm  of  narrative  or  anecdote,  with  the  les- 
sons of  truth  and  the  maxims  of  wisdom,  as  hopefully  to  pro- 
pitiate the  mind,  in  order  to  convince  and  reform  it.  He  that 
winneth  souls  is  wise. 

In  all  my  intercourse  with  men,  at  home  and  abroad,  I 
have  endeavored,  for  forty  years,  to  read  their  characters  by 
their  words  and  actions,  especially  in  the  light  of  divine  reve- 
lation ;  and,  in  a  sense  subordinate  only  to  the  knowledge  of 
God,  I  concur  in  the  sentiment,  That  "  the  proper  study  of 
mankind  is  man." 

What  man  is,  in  all  his  living  phases,  interests  me  infi- 
nitely MORE  than  the  ruins  of  old  castles,  and  abbeys,  and 
palaces  ;  than  cataracts  and  natural  scenery  ;  than  mausole- 
ums, and  monuments,  and  pyramids ;  than  specimens  in  the 
fine  arts,  marble  or  canvass,  or  than  any  other  curiosities  of  na- 
ture or  art,  which  are  all  the  vogue  among  the  fashionable  ; 
with  whom  instruction  is  intolerable,  and  religion  the  most 


16  OL'R    PRESBYTERIAN    DISRUPTION. 

melancholy  thing  in  the  workl  ;  who  have  lime  to  spend  on 
trilics,  and  with  whom,  practically,  the  greatest  trifle  is  eter- 
nity. All  my  own  observation  here  has  had,  on  my  own  miud, 
only  this  two-fold  efl'ect — it  has  grieved  and  exercised  my 
spirit ;  and  it  has  strengthened  and  edified  my  faith  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  I  have  seen  what  infidelity  is,  what  her- 
esy, what  indiflerence,  and  what  are  all  the  dazzling  honors 
of  ambition,  wealth,  pride,  and  fashion. 

In  my  final  interview  with  Chalmers,  that  in  his  study, 
I  had  to  tell  him,  as  he  was  urgent  to  know  from  me,  some- 
thing, or  rather  every  thing,  about  our  Presbyterian  disrup- 
tion in  this  country.  I,  of  course,  gave  him  what  I  think  is 
the  truth  of  the  matter  ;  and  in  my  account  of  it,  I  have 
been  careful  not  to  commit  him  or  his  judgment  on  either 
side,  even  so  much  as  probably  I  might  in  truth  and  justice 
lest  I  should  seem  to  invoke  the  testimony  of  the  dead,  not 
impartially,  to  what  you  think  with  me,  was  infallibly  the 
right  and  the  truth,  in  the  portentous  strife,  and  concerning 
the  abominable  wickedness  and  fratricidal  perjury  of  the  ex- 
scinding acts  of  1837  and  1838.  He  seemed  grieved  that 
ministers  and  brethren  of  a  common  faith,  in  substance  quite 
as  correct  and  as  unanimous  as  could  rationally  be  expected 
in  our  then  great  national  Presbyterian  Church,  with  all 
their  sectional  diversities  of  education  and  preference,  should 
so  fall  out  by  the  iraij,  and  enact  so  ferocious  a  schism,  and 
so  great  a  scandal  before  the  eye  of  heaven  and  of  earth. 
Indeed,  it  had  its  latent  but  sure  effect  to  weaken  the  bonds 
of  our  national  Union  ;  and  with  other  analogous  examples, 
ever  to  be  religiously  deprecated,  of  ecclesiastical  organiza- 
tions, so  many  of  them  severed  in  our  country,  it  seemed  to 
say,  with  horrible  encouragement  and  acclaim,  to  our  political 
and  selfish  demagogues,  and  our  Hotspurs  of  the  South  and 
of  the  North,  of  the  East  and  of  the  West — Go  it,  gentlemen, 
all  of  you.  We  of  the  Church  and  the  ministry  set  you  the 
example,  foUow  it ;  split  the  country  ;  destroy  the  nation ; 


GOD    OVERRULES    EVIL.  17 

down  with  our  arch  of  states  ;  excision  is  the  way ;  revolu- 
tion is  the  thing ;  I'ury  is  our  cathoHcon  ;  and  self-will  our  pa- 
triotism, as  well  as  our  piety.  We  copy  the  illustrious  exam- 
ple of  the  legitimate  son  of  the  wise  King  Solomon,  the  ven- 
erable exscinder  Rehoboam  of  old  ;  and  if  you  will  only  copy 
ours,  we  can  enact  all  consequent  advantages  very  similar,  in 
our  day,  in  promoting  disruption,  apostacy,  captivity,  and  all 
the  other  honors  and  blessings  of  such  salutary  "reforms" 
and  necessary  revolutions,  at  Dan  and  Bethel,  among  the 
tribes  of  Israel. 

Some,  indeed,  have  the  coolness  to  tell  us  of  the  good  re- 
sults ;  as  if  these  were  the  vindication  of  their  wickedness  ; 
as  if  better  results  might  not  have  been  better  reached  by 
other  and  proper  means.  The  argument  is,  then,  as  follows  : 
God  has  overruled  all  these  earthquakes  of  evil,  to  accom- 
plish his  own  wise  and  good  purposes  ;  therefore  the  means 
were  good  which  we  used,  because  providentially  it  seems 
that  the  results  are.  It  were  easy  to  show,  in  this  work  or 
any  other,  that  such  an  argument  is  no  better  than  sophism 
and  impiety — proving  nothing,  or  infinitely  too  much.  The 
truth,  however,  is  clear ;  res  ipsa  loquitur.  God  overrules 
every  thing — glory  to  God  alone  !  The  results  of  the  mur- 
der of  his  own  dear  Son  are  salvation  and  glory  for  ever- 
more, as  all  the  ransomed  of  the  Lamb  shall  know  and  sing 
in  heaven.  Were  Pontius  Pilate,  Herod  Antipas,  the  Jew- 
ish high-priest,  the  scribes  and  the  elders,  the  lying  witness- 
es, Barabbas,  the  blaspheming  and  impenitent  thief,  and  all 
the  orgies  there  oithe  carnal  mind,  which  is  enmity  against 
God,  are  these,  therefore,  all  innocent,  praiseworthy,  glo- 
rious, because  they  were  such  exscinders,  counselors,  helpers, 
and  sub-agents  of  eternal  providence,  in  this  scene  of  human 
and  infernal  darkness,  but  more  of  superhuman  and  celestial 
light,  as  appears  in  the  tragedy  of  the  crucifixion  I  It  is  not 
them  we  thank,  or  excuse,  or  palliate,  if  God  should  make 
it  all,  as  he  makes  all  other  events,  in  some  way  subserve 


18  DOCTRINES    OF    EMMONS. 

the  purposes  of  his  eternal  wisdom,  goodness,  and  philan- 
thropy. 

As  for  Emmonsism,  I  only  say,  that  it  has  had  a  very  bad 
influence,  honored  and  beloved  brethren,  in  several  places  of 
our  extensive  Zion,  before  we  were  bisected,  and  subsequent- 
ly in  both  sections  of  our  Presbyterian  community,  as  well  as 
in  many  other  ecclesiastical  places  of  our  common  country. 
And  it  may  have  indefinitely  more.  Will  you  allow  me, 
with  entire  respect,  frankly  to  say,  what  some  of  you,  if  not 
all,  could  well  attest  with  me,  that  I  have  known  many,  or 
at  least  several,  of  your  own  honored  order  in  the  Church, 
who,  as  Ruling  Elders,  have  been  not  tinctured,  but  pervad- 
ed and  saturated  with  the  system  ;  and  who  have  thereby 
shown  and  experienced  its  appropriate  fmits,  in  their  dry- 
ness, their  hair-splitting  and  heartless  abstractions,  their  hard- 
ness of  character,  their  want  of  Christian  sympathy,  their 
waning  usefulness,  their  retrogradation  in  spiritual  fervor, 
their  interest  and  power  in  prayer  lapsing  to  apathy  or  set- 
tling in  antipathy,  their  losing  a  good  report,  and  their  ulti- 
mate inanity  and  unprofitableness,  as  full  of  false  wisdom — 
till  they  became  disinterested  in  every  thing  good,  with  a 
witness.  They  were  not  aware  of  their  danger  when  they 
began  to  be  taken  with  the  glitter  of  his  theory,  with  its  mar- 
velous speciousness,  with  its  promise  of  superior  philosophy, 
with  its  seeming  short-cut  road  to  all  religious  learning  and 
knowledge  ;  and  when  others  saw  that  the  Bible  itself  began 
to  be  postponed  to  the  sermons  of  Emmons,  they  were  not 
sensible  of  it.  Their  indocility,  their  pufTed-up  obstinacy, 
their  sublimated  self-complacency,  made  them  quite  superior 
to  their  own  pastors  in  their  assumptions.  They  came  to 
church,  not  as  worshipers,  but  as  critics.  They  were  cen- 
sors-general of  the  ministrj' ;  knowing  every  thing  but  their 
own  danger,  arrogance,  and  want  of  true  knowledge.  All 
this  I  have  seen,  and  even  felt  ;  though  not  much,  if  at  all, 
in  my  own  pastoral  relations.     But  some  of  my  beloved 


STRANGE    TESTS.  19 

brethren  in  the  ministry,  more  in  former  than  in  later  years, 
have  been  cruelly  harassed  by  these  governments,  that  should 
have  been  help?,,  also,  in  the  Church  of  God.  Some,  in  our 
sessions,  have — in  a  few  special  instances — been  like  growl- 
ing lions  there,  in  spite  of  the  better  wisdom  and  the  official 
influence  of  the  pastor,  to  frighten  and  scare  away  the  new- 
bom  lambs  of  Christ,  and  make  it  an  ordeal  of  fire  in  the 
very  threshold  of  the  Church,  which  the  young  convert  could 
not  attempt  or  succeed  to  cross,  on  account  of  their  search- 
ing questions,  their  technical  tests,  their  revolting  and  shame- 
ful paradoxes.  "  Have  you  any  disinterested  benevolence  ? 
Is  it  self  that  you  love  ?  Are  you  willing  to  be  damned  for 
the  glory  of  God  ?  Do  you  believe  that  God  does  all  things  ? 
Is  this  the  best  possible  system  ?  When  were  you  convert- 
ed, how,  by  what  means,  and  are  you  sure  you  are  convert- 
ed ?  Have  you  any  unconditional  submission  to  God  ?  Do 
you  love  his  sovereignty  supremely  ?  Have  you  thought 
what  it  means  '  to  have  a  holy  willingness  to  sin  ?'  Suppose 
you  are  one  of  the  non-elect  ?  If  God  were  to  cast  you  into 
hell,  would  you  still  love  him  ?  Have  you  renounced  all 
selfishness  and  all  self-love  ?  Did  you  ever  read  Emmons  ? 
Or,  do  you  think  you  will  ever  understand  any  thing  till  you 
do  ?  Or,  are  you  opposed  to  metaphysics  ?  Or,  do  you  think 
there  ever  will  be  any  millennium,  unless  they  value  more 
and  read  that  great  divine  ?" 

These  are  given  as  real  specimens — that  have  occurred,  I 
know  ;  not  all  at  once,  perhaps,  yet  in  their  turns  and  de- 
grees, with  most  exasperating  and  most  culpable  reiteration, 
and  habituation,  in  some  places.  You  perceive  that  not  one 
word  is  said  in  them  about  our  Lord  and  Savior  Jesus  Christ, 
or  coming  to  him  for  life,  or  his  offices,  his  mercy,  his  king- 
dom, his  condescension,  his  meekness  and  gentleness,  his  of- 
fers and  his  promises,  his  glory,  his  service,  his  people,  his 
salvation,  or  his  Bible.  No  question  such  as  our  doctrinal 
and  noble  standards  would  approve,  and  no  allusion  to  those 


20  CHRIST    THE    HEAD. 

standards  ;  none  to  creed,  catechism,  government,  discipline, 
or  directory  I 

What  right  have  any  of  us,  his  officers,  to  alter  the  terms, 
or  embarrass  the  access  of  his  communion,  in  the  Churcli  of 
Christ  ?  to  require  of  his  disciples  M'hat  he  does  not  require  ? 
or  to  reject  or  harass  even  him  that  is  weak  in  the  faith, 
when  Christ  says,  receive  him?  Just  as  much  right  as  had 
the  exscinders  for  their  enacted  wickedness  in  the  house  of 
God.  Just  as  much  right  as  has  the  undone  hierarchy  of 
Rome,  with  the  papal  monstrosity  enthroned  there,  to  meta- 
morphose the  Church  of  God  into  the  congregation  of  the 
devil,  and  to  show  Christianity  in  stupendous  caricature,  as 
something  infinitely  dissimilar,  and  infinitely  other  than  what 
it  is,  as  God  made  it.  There  is  no  authority,  no  jurisdic- 
tion, no  headship,  rightly  in  the  Church  on  earth,  but  that 
of  Christ  alone  ;  which  his  true  ministers  and  his  faithful 
officers  learn  that  they  must  declare  and  administer  in  his 
name,  as  the  unaltered  will  and  way  of  heaven.  The  Church 
is  Christ's  own,  and  HE  alone  has  the  right  to  make  laws 
in  it ;  nor  is  there  possibly  a  principle  in  the  polity  of  the 
Church  of  more  fundamental  gravity  and  grandeur  than  this. 
We,  who  rule,  ought  to  know,  and  digest,  and  maintain  it,  in 
alto  relievo,  on  every  tablet  or  facade  of  the  house  of  God. 
It  ought  to  be  graven  on  our  hearts  !  A  departure  from  this 
principle,  a  violation  of  it,  is  a  growing  virus  in  the  Church  ; 
and  all  history  develops  it  as  the  pre-eminent  mischief  of  the 
apostasy  of  ages,  oriental,  occidental,  and  almost  ecumenical, 
in  all  Christendom.  It  is  the  very  germ  of  the  myf,tery  of 
iniquity — against  which,  with  due  intelligence,  we  should 
watch  and  j)ray,  lest  we  fall  into  temptation.  Every  officer 
of  the  Church  of  Christ  ought  to  feel,  and  digest,  and  honor 
it.  There  is  a  senatus-consultum  of  heaven  respecting  it, 
somewhat  analogous  to  that  of  old  republican  Rome,  that  so 
charged  the  consul  to  guard  the  state,  at  all  events,  against 
all  detriment  —  consul  videret  ut   nil  detrimenti  res- 


WISDOM    AND    TENDERNESS.  21 

FUBLiCA  CAPERET.  Let  US  all  here  be  vigilant  and  energet- 
ic, glorifying,  as  we  ought,  the  ubiquity  of"  Christ,  our  King, 
in  his  own  Church  ;  feeling  by  faith  his  ever-presence,  as 
Jesus  Christ,  the  same  yesterday,  and  to-day,  and  for- 
KVER  ;  the  great  God  and  Savior*  of  us,  without  successor, 
rival,  equal,  or  substitute  ;  eternally  our  Head,  our  Com- 
mander, our  glory,  and  our  salvation.  Let  others  worship 
the  rusty,  rotten,  ridiculous  chain  of  "  succession,"  and  gal- 
vanize it,  till  it  shakes  in  all  manner  of  wild  contortions,  like 
a  floundering  corpse  on  the  table  of  an  anatomical  theatre — 
they  will  get  as  much  life  from  the  one  as  the  other.  We 
repudiate  this  heathenism  that  adores  relics,  and  deifies  dead 
men's  bones  and  all  uncleanness,  while  it  vacates  the  gloiy 
of  the  living  Church,  by  practically  denying  the  HEADSHIP 
of  the  Son  of  God,  and  substituting  ultimately  their  own 
lawn-rigged  and  mitred  selves  I  Matt.  18  :  20.  Nor 
know  I  of  any  part  of  the  ruling  or  consular  function  in  the 
Church,  pertaining'to  your  high  and  honorable  office,  breth- 
ren, that  requires  more  wisdom,  more  tenderness,  more  sym- 
pathy, more  prayer,  or  more  simple  faith  in  the  teaching  of 
the  Spirit,  than  that  in  which,  as  coassessors  with  the  pas- 
tor, the  primitive  apostolic  bishop  of  the  congregation,  you 
examine  or  admit  the  candidates  that  come  before  the  ses- 
sion, as  applicants  for  the  privileges  of  the  Church.  Li  fact, 
it  is  primely  the  business  of  the  pastor,  who  is  by  office  re- 
quired and  qualified,  better  than  others,  to  know  both  the 
persons  that  apply  and  the  questions  suitable  to  address  to 
them.  One  great  duty  of  the  elders  is  to  know  their  social 
character ;  to  ascertain  their  reputation  in  the  relations  of 
life  ;  and  to  report  to  the  pastor  if  there  be  any  known  scan- 
dal, or  let,  or  hinderance,  to  their  matriculation  as  members 
of  the  Church. 

The  great  tests  of  character,  as  proposed  by  the  system  of 
Emmons,  are  mainly  all  uitra-evangehcal,  and  can  be  stood 
*  So  we  render,  ai  liieram,  the  original  of  Tit.  2  :  13. 


22  HARD    CHARACTERS. 

and  endured  only  by  the  partisan  and  the  self-deceived.  No 
man  on  earth  has  a  right  to  enact  or  to  propose  them.  God 
has  not  required  them  at  our  hands.  They  are  inconsistent 
with  what  he  does  require.  When  men  talk  o{  U'illing7iess 
to  be  damned,  in  any  category  or  hypothesis,  they  are,  at 
best,  each  a  prating  theological  fool  ;  under sta7iding 
neither  ivhat  tliey  say,  nor  ivhereof  they  affirm.  God  re- 
quires us  TO  BE  WILLING  TO  BE  SAVED,  cordially  willing,  by 
the  grace  of  God,  according  to  the  Gospel ;  saved  from  sin 
and  th£  wrath  to  come,  to  his  own  glory  in  Jesus  Christ. 
The  great  mischief  of  the  world,  in  their  impenitence,  their 
folly,  their  blindness,  is,  that,  practically,  they  are  all 
SO  WILLING  to  be  LOST  I  Any  thing  for  them,  any  thing 
but  the  salvation  of  God.  One  of  Webster's  very  proper 
definitions  of  disinterestedness  is,  indifference  I  a  quality  in 
which  the  world,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  excels  infinitely  the 
Church.  Reprobates  are  eternally  (disinterested  in  the  sal- 
vation of  Christ,  and  their  indifference  or  antagony  induces 
it  all.  The  doctrine  of  damnation  is  indeed  a  divine  and  a 
solemn  reality  ;  and,  as  such,  fearful,  tremendous,  and  to  be 
vieAved  only  with  religious  aw^e  and  deprecation.  Some 
speculatists  talk  of  it  only  as  theological  triflers,  hardening 
their  own  hearts  with  the  awful  truth — and  some,  without 
skill,  or  consideration,  or  wisdom,  and  with  no  tenderness  or 
reverence,  dogmatizing  their  own  speculations,  most  destruc- 
tively, to  the  feelings,  and  the  impressions,  and  the  hopes 
of  the  inquiring,  the  recent,  and  the  immature.  Such  hard- 
hearted smatterers  would  ridicule  us  as  old  women,  and  so 
forth,  if  our  practice  among  them  were  to  exemplify  the 
words  of  the  sublime  apostle,  who  said.  We  were  gentle 
amoyig  you,  even  as  a  nurse  cherisheth  her  children ;  so 
being  affectionately  desirous  of  you,  tve  were  ivilling  to  im- 
part to  you,  not  the  Gospel  of  God  only,  but  also  our  own 
souls,  because  ye  ivere  dear  to  us.  This  is  piety,  and  this 
the  way  to  propagate  it,  which  those  hardened  and  frigid 


THE    KOAD    TO    HONOR.  23 

partisans  neither  love  nor  know.  Oh  I  how  desirable,  how 
necessary,  how  blessed  it  is,  when  the  session,  that  is,  the 
pastor  and  all  the  ruling  elders,  act  and  feel  together  as 
one,  imbued  in  common  M'ith  the  wisdom  of  the  Master,  and 
loving  tenderly  all  the  flock  for  the  great  Shepherd's  sake  ; 
all  striving  together  for  the  faith  of  the  Gosjjel !  It  is  not 
in  the  spirit  of  complaint  at  all,  as  personal  to  myself,  that 
this  is  written ;  but  more  or  wholly  in  fraternal  sympathy  for 
others.  It  is  my  happiness,  as  a  Christian  pastor,  to  be  as- 
sociated with  colleagues  united  and  intelligent,  and  who 
would  abhor  the  temptation,  which  has  captured  some  Aveak 
and  vain  ones,  to  make  themselves  important  by  making 
distinguished  and  protracted  perplexity  and  trouble  for  others. 
One  elder  of  the  latter  description,  like  a  pestilential  sheep 
in  the  flock,  can  do  more  mischief  than  all  the  others  can 
ordinarily  repair — as  self-willed,  inflated  with  his  own  ideas, 
inconsiderate  of  the  wisdom  of  his  peers,  disrespectful  to  his 
pastor,  vaunting  his  own  importance,  commanding  his  own 
precedence,  and  stealthily  usurping  power.  Humility  is  dig- 
nity, the  fruit  and  the  evidence  of  wisdom,  the  way  to  real  es- 
teem and  honor ;  and  it  confers  the  best  epaulets  of  office  in 
the  Church.  Let  tcs,  therefore,  follow  after  the  things  that 
make  for  2)eace,  a?ul  things  tuhereivith  one  viay  edify  a7i- 
other.  For  he  that  in  these  things  serveth  Christ  is  ac- 
ceptable to  God  and  ajijJroved  of  men. 

The  oflice  you  sustain  in  the  Church,  dear  brethren,  with 
such  honor  and  acceptance,  is  yet  to  be  better  understood, 
and  the  faces  of  elders  more  honored,  in  our  Church  and  in 
our  country.  We  may  not  write  it  that  the  elders  have 
ceased  from  the  gate;  yet  we  hope  to  record,  in  our  coming 
history,  that  there  they  were  increasingly  more  frequent  and 
more  useful,  as  well  as  more  honorable,  in  their  counsel  for 
the  welfare  of  Jerusalem.  In  many  churches,  often  the  fault 
of  the  pastors  I  dico  apcrte,  7ios  consulcs  desumus .'  the  office 
is  confused  with  that  of  deacons ;  both  ofl[ices  are  virtually 


24  ELDERS    NOT    DEACONS. 

exercised  by  the  same  incumbent ;  sometimes  the  deacon,  by 
usurpation,  is  an  elder.  Sometimes,  and  oftener,  the  elder, 
in  the  same  way,  is  a  deacon.  So  it  ought  not  to  be  I  Your 
office  is  not  to  seri'e  tables,  not  even  the  Lord's  table  I  nor 
to  take  care  of  the  poor ;  nor  to  assist  the  bishop  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  either  sacrament ;  nor  to  give  executive  at- 
tendance and  oversight  in  seating  strangers,  and  managing 
the  incidents  of  public  worship.  All  this  is  honorable,  but 
subordinate.  It  belongs  of  right  to  the  diaconate.  But  you 
are  the  counselors,  the  paternal  governors  of  the  Church,  in 
conjunction  with  your  moderator  and  pastor,  according  to 
the  excellent  constitution  of  our  Church,  soundly  interpreted. 
Your  proper  official  attributes  are  mainly  resolvable  into  one 
— WISDOM.  This  is  the  jyrincipal  thing.  It  should  be  en- 
lightened, comprehensiA^e,  experimental,  and  mature  ;  and 
withal  of  that  kind  that  comcth  from  above.  James,  3  : 
13-18.  It  should  deserve  and  conciliate  the  confidence  both 
of  the  ministry  and  the  Church.  Its  sphere  should  be  wider 
and  more  visitorial.  Its  care  of  the  flock  should  expatiate  pe- 
culiarly and  tenderly  toward  the  lambs.  The  elders  ought 
to  be  great  helpers  both  to  parents  and  pastor,  in  the  faith- 
ful, and  the  guarded,  and  the  evangelical  education  of  the 
young.  A  little  system,  a  little  condescension,  a  little  pray- 
erful and  patriarchal  oversight,  and  a  little  devotion  to  the 
work,  oh  I  what  good  might  this  efiectuate,  to  magnify  your 
office,  and  endear  your  influence  to  all  the  congregation,  the 
heads  and  the  members  of  all  its  families.  Then  they  would 
better  love  and  understand  the  order — Obey  them  that  Jiave 
the  rule  over  you,  and  submit  you? selves:  for  they  watch 
for  your  souls,  as  they  that  7nust  give  account;  that  they 
•may  do  it  with  joy,  and  not  with  grief ;  for  that  were 
unprofitable  for  you.  The  account  here  demonstrably  re- 
fers to  that  which  their  elders  and  pastors  shall  give  of 
them,  as  objects  of  all  their  official  missions ;  though  often 
and  commonly  mistaken  to  mean  the  officials  themselves,  as 


ABUSE    OF    CIVIL    FREEDOM.  25 

solemnly  accountable  in  all.  I  only  add,  a  ruling  elder  ought 
to  be  a  good  biblical  scholar,  and  well  conversant  with  the 
whole  polity  of  the  Church. 

There  is  danger  in  our  republican  tendencies,  of  perver- 
sion, in  one  of  the  highest  relations  of  our  being.  A  man 
may  be  gi'eat  as  a  patriot  and  a  statesman,  and  as  a 
scholar,  and  yet  not  be  a  Christian  I  while  our  national  or 
political  gratitude  may  proceed  to  adoration,  to  apotheosis, 
to  canonization  ;  only  on  the  ground  of  his  distinguished 
civic  virtues,  his  public  usefulness,  or  his  mihtary  success. 
If  we  perpetrate  this  enormity,  God  will  be  no  party  to  our 
error.  He  has  but  one  way  of  saving  sinners  ;  and  neither 
Harrison  nor  Adams,  neither  Clay  nor  Washington,  neither 
Moses  nor  David,  neither  Daniel  nor  Paul,  could  possibly  or 
ever  reach  heaven  in  any  other  way.  This  is  a  faithful 
saying,  and  worthy  of  all  acceptation  ;  that  is,  worthy 
to  be  accepted  by  every  one,  tliat  Christ  Jesus  came  into 
the  world  to  save  sinners ;  of  whom  I  am  chief.  There  is 
ONE  MEDIATOR  beticecn  God  and  men,  the  man  Christ 
Jesus  ;  who  gave  himself  a  ransotn  for  all,  a  testimony  in 
due  time.     Neither  is  there  salvation  in  any  other  ; 

FOR     there    is    none    OTHEFx    NAME    UNDER    HEAVEN,    given 

among  men,  whereby  we  must  he  saved.  For  God  so 
LOVED  THE  WORLD,  that  lic  gave  his  only-begotten  Son,  that 
whosoever  believeth  on  Him,  or  trusteth  to  Him,  shoidd  not 
perish,  but  have  everlasting  life. 

With  these  sentiments,  simply  and  sincerely  believed,  did 
I  converse  with  President  Adams,  on  the  occasion  herein 
recited  and  described.  One  reason  that  I  selected  and  now 
insert  that,  refers  to  other  great  men  of  the  nation,  who  may 
possibly  peruse  it ;  men  who  are  too  great  to  be  good,  too 
knowing  to  learn  of  Christ,  too  much  themselves  like  gods, 
Psalm  82  :  6,  to  remember  that  they  shall  die  like  men, 
each  of  them  shall  perish  like  one  of  the  princes — some  of 
them  in  danger  of  perishing  in  a  sense  supreme  and  eternal  ' 

B 


26  GREAT    ONES    NOT    AI.WAYS    GOOD. 

I  am  well  aware  of  the  delicacies  and  the  difficulties  con- 
nected with  my  theme  and  my  publication ;  and  I  have  hon- 
estly tried,  as  far  as  I  knew  how,  both  to  be  faithful  in  the 
premises,  and,  if  possible,  to  give  no  reasonable  oflense  to 
any  reader.  How  I  may  have  succeeded,  time  will  show. 
By  no  means  sanguine,  I  desire  to  feel  my  dependence  mainly- 
on  God  alone  for  that  blessing  which  determines  all  prosper- 
ity. Excej)t  the  Lord  build  the  house,  theij  labor  i?i  vain 
that  build  it.  For  promotion  cometh  neither  front  the  East, 
nor  from  the  West,  nm- fro7n  the  South  ;  but  God  is  the 
Judge  ;  He  jnitteth  down  one,  and  setteth  up  another. 

A  man  who  is  distinguished  in  life  for  his  eminent  knowl- 
edge of  many  great  things,  may  not,  therefore,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  know  equally  all  other,  and  some  of  the  greatest 
things.  And  yet,  from  his  celebrity,  he  is  often  tempted  to 
assume  or  affect  to  know  every  thing.  The  same  sentiment 
is  popular,  because  its  theme  is  such.  Yet  of  any  one  thing 
if  he  is  ignorant,  his  ignorance  in  that  one  particular  is  none 
the  better,  and  none  the  less,  but  rather  seemingly  the  more, 
for  being  associated  in  the  same  subject  with  immense  knowl- 
edge in  a  thousand  other  particulars.  A  learned  doctor  in 
divinity  once  asked  me,  in  reference  to  the  Giant's  Cause- 
way, in  Ireland,  if  it  was  accurately  known  by  whom,  and 
in  what  age  of  the  world,  it  was  built  there  I  A  respecta- 
ble lady,  to  whom  I  was  speaking  on  the  subject  of  personal 
religion,  and  to  whom  my  language  more  than  implying  that 
she  was  a  sinner,  took  fright,  rather  than  imibrage,  as  if  I 
knew  something  of  her  personal  history,  conscia  facinoris, 
which  she  intended  to  keep  a  profound  secret.  Another,  a 
wealthy  lady,  who  kept  telling  me  of  her  abounding  virtues 
and  good  works,  usque  ad  iiauseam,  and  to  whom  I  said, 
Madam,  do  you  not  think  that  you  have  some  self-righteous- 
ness in  all  this  ?  replied,  with  a  very  earnest  coinitenance. 
Ah  I  sir,  I  hope  1  have.  That's  what  I  Uy  for,  and  am 
after  it,  day  and  night,  continually.     Alas  !   in  some  sense 


HOl'E  IN  GOD  FOR  OUR  COUNTRY.  27 

she  told  the  trulli ;  more  truth  than  she  knew.  It  was  solf- 
righteousness,  and  not  salvation,  that  she  was  aCtcr  I  She 
was,  however,  a  member  of  no  Church  ;  and  though  not  so 
distinguished  as  Xho  fashionable  lady  at  Calais,  and  possibly 
more  wealthy,  it  is  probable  that,  like  her,  her  worldly  pos- 
sessions, and,  above  all,  her  wondrous  quantity  ol"  seil'-right- 
eousness,  constituted  about  all  her  preparation  for  heaven  or 
fitness  for  the  solemnity  of  the  mortal  hour.  One  of  our  dis- 
tinguished governors,  in  one  of  the  sovereign  states  of  our 
confederacy,  some  years  since,  in  his  proclamation  for  annual 
TiiANKSGiviNa  —  by  the  way,  a  most  proper,  and  in  some 
places  A  MOST  impiously  abused  observance  I — after  other 
things  that  were  better  said,  exhorted  all  his  constituents, 
assembled  on  the  appointed  day,  in  their  respective  houses 
of  public  worship,  to  endeavor  to  merit  y/w?j  tJic  hand  of 
God  a  continuance  of  Jus  mercies  !  His  excellency  might 
just  as  well,  just  as  practicably,  have  exhorted  and  urged 
them  to  build  a  new  solar  system,  and  stock  it  with  theolog- 
ical governors,  who  know  how  to  "  merit  mercy  !" 

But  I  have  only  to  conclude  this  introductory  inscription, 
asking  pardon  for  its  length,  by  congratulating  you  on  the 
many  good  things  that  God's  mercy,  contrary  to  our  deserts, 
hath  left  among  us  in  our  land.  Each  of  us  may  say,  with 
the  genuine  gratitude  of  a  Christian  and  the  appropriate  pi- 
ety of  an  American,  The  Lord  is  tJie  jiortion  of  mine  inher- 
itance and  of  my  cup  ;  thoii  maintainest  my  lot.  The  lines 
are  fallen  to  me  in  pleasaiit  places;  yea,  I  have  a  goodly 
heritage.  We  have  religious  liberty,  in  its  fullness  and  its 
perfection.  We  have  Bibles,  Christians,  ministers  of  Christ, 
churches,  the  means  of  grace,  much  that  is  correct  and  Chris- 
tian in  our  public  sentiment,  and  the  prospects,  under  God, 
as  the  Great  Conservator  of  our  country,  the  Jehovah 
Stator  of  these  United  States,  and  the  Mighty  Guardian 
of  his  own  cause  every  where,  the  prospects,  I  say,  of  per- 
manency, progress,  improvement,  usefulness,  and  salvation. 
Amen — Alleluia ! 


HOR^   CHALMERIAN^. 


INTERVIEWS  WITH  CHALMERS, 

PUBLICAN D    PRIVATE; 
GLASGOW  AND   EDINBURGH,  1833,  1846. 


A  wise  man  is  strong  ;  yea,  a  man  of  knowledge  increaseth  strength. — Prov.  24  :  5. 
He  that  foUoweth  after  righteousness  and  mercy,  findeth  life,  righteousness,  and 
honor. — Prov.  21  :  21. 

The  memory  of  the  just  is  blessed. — Prov.  10  :  7. 
Integer  vitae  scelerisque  purus. 

.Tustum  et  tenacem  propositi  virum 
Non  civium  ardor  prava  jubentium 
Non  v\iltus  inslantis  tyranni 
Mente  quatit  solida.    *    * 

Si  fractus  illabitur  orbis 
Impavidum  ferient  ruins. 

Multis  ille  bonis  flebilis  occidit. 

Ergo  Quintilium  perpetuus  sopor 
Urget ;     Cui  pudor,  et  justitine  soror 
Incorrupta  fides,  nudaque  Veritas, 

Quando  ullum  invenient  parem? — Hor. 

(jtavepaOelcrav  Se  vvv  Sia.  t^s  eTTK^ai'ei'as  ToO  (TtoT^pos  fmiov  Irjcrov  Xpi(rTou, 

KaTapyq<TavTO';  nev  tov  OdvaTov. — 2  7Ym.  1  :  10. 


KEV.  THOMAS  CHALMERS,  D.D.  LLD. 


Human  greatness  is  often — if  not  always — an  equivoque, 
an  ambiguity.  It  is  sometimes  an  assumption,  sometimes  a 
misfortune,  sornetimes  the  creature  of  circumstances,  facti- 
tious, ostentatious,  false.  It  is  sometimes  a  crime,  a  fallacy, 
an  impiety.  With  some  men  their  greatness  is  in  inverse 
ratio  as  their  proximity  ;  it  requires  "  distance  to  lend  en- 
chantment to  the  view  ;"  since  to  be  acquainted  with  them 
is  an  effectual  cure  for  the  temptation  to  idolatry.  Here  a 
man  is  a  monarch,  not  because  he  ever  did  or  ever  was  any 
thiiag  great,  or  splendid,  or  virtuous  ;  but  for  several  other 
reasons.  He  was  the  child  of  such  parents  ;  he  was  older 
than  their  other  children  ;  a  vacancy  occurred  in  the  throne, 
and  he  was  passively  ordained  the  proper  candidate. 

Among  the  incumbents  of  the  clerical  profession  greatness 
is  too  often  the  result  of  no  certainly  appropriate  qualities  of 
its  possessor.  He  was  elected  in  the  conclave — either  by 
scrutiny,  or  by  accession,  or  by  acclamation,  and,  quern  cre- 
ant  adorant,  he  is,  presto,  the  great  Father  of  all  Chris- 
tendom, the  Prince  of  this  world,  the  Prophet  of  eternity,  the 
Arbiter  of  human  destiny,  the  Vicar  of  the  Son  of  God  I 
Or,  the  premier  of  Great  Britain  has  named  him  to  the 
Archbishopric  of  York  or  Canterbury,  with  a  stipend  of  im- 
perial affluence  ;  and  the  Head  of  the  Church  there — mascu- 
line or  feminine — has,  as  a  matter  of  course,  confirmed  the 
nomination  I  Or,  an  Irish  Papist  comes  to  the  United  States, 
works  at  gardening  for  a  while,  then  takes  the  chrism  of  the 
Popish  priesthood,  and  then,  rising  on  the  ppamid  by  merit 
or  contrivance,  he  gets  at  last  to  be  appointed  by  the  pope 


32  TRUE    GREATNESS. 

to  the  renowned  archprelacy  of  Basilopolis  I  with  some  ex- 
pectation of  the  broad  brim  of  a  cardinal,  with  some  consid- 
ered possibility  of  the  tiara  itself  I 

The  greatness  of  Chajlmers  appears  only  the  brighter 
and  the  better  amid  all  these  meretricious  contrasts.  He 
held  no  office  that  men  invented,  or  that  Pagans  envy,  or  that 
inonarchs  patronize  or  properly  estimate.  His  fame  rested 
on  what  he  was,  and  on  what  he  did,  and  on  what  he  prom- 
ised, Avith  God  for  his  underwriter.  His  great  qualities  made 
■  his  exalted  reputation  ;  and  his  goodness  ripened,  and  ex- 
panded, and  aggrandized  those  qualities.  His  honors  in  time 
are  only  types  of  what  they  are  in  eternity  ;  his  eminence  in 
this  world  only  the  shadow  of  his  graduation  in  that  which 
is  to  come.  A  prosperous  coup  d'etat  can  make,  it  seems,  an 
autocrat,  or  even  an  emperor  ;  an  incident  of  party  tactics,  or 
a  powerful  bribe,  may  instate  a  pseudo-successor  of  apostles  ; 
a  trifle  of  any  other  sort  may  confer  sublunary  greatness,  in 
which  the  possessor  is  both  envied  and  passive,  to  say  nothing 
of  qualification  or  desert.  The  kingdom  of  heaven,  unbor- 
rowed and  unborrowing  as  the  solar  hght,  rejects  and  inhibits 
all  worldly  conformities,  all  earthly  imitations ;  and  is  only 
ruined  or  superseded  by  their  ascendency.  Jesus  said — Ye 
know  tJiat  the  pi'inces  of  tlie  stations  exercise  domitiio?i  over 
them,  and  they  that  are  great  exercise  authority  upon  them. 

But  IT  .SHALL  NOT  BE  SO  AMONG  YOU  :    hut  whoSOeVBT  wUl  be 

great  a7)io)tg  yon ,  let  him  beyoicr  oninister ;  and  whosoever 
loill  be  chief  among  you,  let  him  be  your  servant :  eveti  as 
the  Son  of  man  came,  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  min- 
ister, and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many. 

The  astronomical  discourses  of  Chalmers  appeared  in  this 
country  near  forty  years  ago  ;  and  I  read  them  in  the  fer- 
vor of  my  first  love.  From  that  period  my  estimation  of  their 
author  was  deep  and  high.  I  went  to  Scotland,  that  land 
of  my  mother's  fathers'  sires,  with  a  vivid  sense  of  its  many 
attractions,  in  September,  1833  ;  but  no  object  there  attracted 


PROVIDENCES STENOCiRAFHY.  33 

me  like  the  person,  the  rninistralioa,  the  companionship  of 
Chalmers.  To  see  him,  to  hear  him,  to  enjoy  his  society,  was 
number  one  among  my  items  of  desire.  The  scenery  of  the 
Highlands,  Roderick  Dhu's  country  and  Ellen's  Isle,  and  the 
lochs,  were  all  vastly  httle  in  comparison.  And  all  this  was 
aggravated  by  a  special  cause — it  was  noiv  or  never  in  my 
apprehension. 

Two  events,  controlled  alone  by  Providence,  arc  memora- 
ble here — one,  the  way  in  which  I  missed  the  opportunity  in 
London ;  another,  the  strange  coincidence  by  which  I  hit  it  in 
Glasgow  and  in  Edinburgh. 

He  was  announced  to  come  to  London  in  the  summer,  and 
lecture  a  scries  on  the  "  Christian  expediency  of  ecclesiastical 
establishments."  He  came,  and  in  his  serial,  as  in  his  gen- 
eral ministrations,  in  the  Caledonian  chapel,  Sidmouth  Street, 
Regent's  Park,  just  vacated  by  the  degradation  of  poor  Irving, 
was  attended  by  the  titled,  the  noble,  and  the  grand,  con- 
testing in  crowds  for  the  privilege.  What  crested  equipages, 
what  pomp  and  peerage,  what  nobility  and  royalty,  and  in 
all  what  pageantry  and  glory,  were  there  to  hear  him  I  I 
was  then  on  the  Continent,  and  returned  just  in  time  to  de- 
siderate his  last  performance,  he  having  returned  to  Scotland 
a  few  days  previous.  It  was  a  great,  and  even  a  painful  pri- 
vation, then  seeming  irreparable.  However,  I  was  availed 
of  the  glowing  accounts  and  narrations  of  others — and  some 
of  his  "  deliverances"  I  could  read,  as  the  result  of  that  fur- 
tive and  impudent  stenography,  as  Jay  denounces  and  virtu- 
ally calls  it,  so  common  in  London  and  other  places,  by  which 
certain  adepts  of  the  trade  take  notes,  in  their  own  way,  of 
any  distinguished  or  available  speaker,  from  the  platform  or 
the  pulpit ;  and,  right  or  wrong,  per  fas  et  nefas,  give  it  to 
the  public  in  a  few  hours,  and  make  money  by^  hawking  it 
about  the  streets,  while  the  interest  is  fresh,  or  the  affair  a 
novelty,  whether  literary,  political,  or  ecclesiastical.  I  read 
and  considered  a  sermon,  thus  furnished,  which  was  eloquent, 

B  2 


34  HEARING    CHALMERS. 

not  badly  reproduced,  which  interested  me,  provoked  some  an- 
imadversion, and  of  which  I  shall  speak  again — not  alone 
with  commendation,  great  and  brilliant,  and  fervid  and  good 
in  the  main,  as  it  certainly  was. 

The  other  incident  was  a  compensation  and  a  great  feli- 
city. It  seems  that  Chalmers,  when  he  retired  from  St. 
John's,  Glasgow,  made,  as  I  was  told,  a  pact  with  his  peo- 
ple, that,  if  they  would  give  him  a  voice  in  the  selection  of 
his  successor,  he  would  visit  them  at  least  once  a  year,  spend 
a  Lord's  day  with  them,  and  assist  by  collections  in  accom- 
plishing the  stipend,  or  something  of  this  sort.  When,  there- 
fore, I  came  by  steamer,  on  Tuesday,  September  3,  1833, 
from  Belfast,  on  the  Clyde,  to  Glasgow,  I  was  informed  that 
Chalmers  was  there,  and  was  to  preach  for  his  former  peo- 
ple next  Lord's-day.  I  was  also  assured,  however,  that  I 
stood  no  chance  at  all  of  hearing  him  ;  as  crowds  challenged 
the  privilege,  as  the  police  were  to  take  possession  of  the 
doors  and  passages,  and  as  more  than  the  edifice  could  con- 
tain probably  had  already  a  ticket  or  a  pledge  for  the  occa- 
sion. I  was  at  last  indebted  to  my  friend,  William  Collins, 
Esq.  who,  as  a  member  and  pew-owner,  had  precedence. 
We  went  at  an  earlier  hour  than  usual  ;  and  then,  by  dint 
of  physical  efibrt  as  well  as  courage,  he  parted  the  crowd, 
and  I  followed,  I  scarce  know  how,  till,  after  laborious  per- 
severance, and  serving  an  ejectment  on  some  interlopers  in 
his  pew,  we  found  our  seats. 

The  interval  was  one  of  some  congratulation  and  impa- 
tience. We  were  then  to  wait  nearly  an  hour  till  the  time 
of  service.  The  scene  was  interesting  and  peculiar.  The 
house  was  a  perfect  jam  ;  and,  as  I  then  perceived,  in  pew, 
aisle,  and  every  space-way,  these  were  all  filled  with  the 
sterner  sex  alone.  It  seemed  hard  to  exclude  the  ladies  all 
from  the  spiritual  feast ;  but,  as  my  friend  indicated,  I  soon 
found  that,  by  an  order  of  arrangement,  the  galleries  were 
reserved  for  them,  and  were  all  occupied  at  an  earlier  hour, 


IIIH    BROAD    SCOTCH.  35 

tlicy  havinp:  llie  first  opportunity  of  entrance.  It  was  well. 
And  yet  I  felt  for  the  preacher,  as  the  scene  might  make  him 
sympathetically  uneasy,  and  the  air  be  too  soon  deoxygenated 
for  the  proper  exercise  of  speaking.  As  soon  as  they  saw  the 
preacher,  however,  they  grew  still, 

Conticuere  omnes,  intentiquc  ora  tenebant ; 
and,  through  the  entire  performance,  their  attention  was  fixed 
and  profound  ;  though  at  intervals,  when  in  preaching  he 
paused  or  ceased  for  a  moment,  reclining  to  recover  his 
strength,  there  was  such  a  noise  of  throats,  and  noses,  and 
kerchiefs,  and  such  a  general  preparation  for  another  onset 
of  oratory  and  attention,  that  the  contrast  of  stillness,  when 
he  resumed,  was  the  more  observable,  especially  as  it  was 
so  promptly  restored,  and  so  remarkably  perfect. 

As  Chalmers  entered  from  the  vestry  and  ascended  the 
pulpit,  there  was  something  at  once  simple  and  unaflected, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  solemn,  and  engaged,  and  absorbed,  on 
the  other,  in  his  manner  and  expression.  His  stature  ap 
peared  shorter  than  I  expected;  but  his  countenance,  with 
no  glare  or  ostentation,  seemed  gathered  to  a  point,  in  tran- 
quil but  fixed  concentration  ;  as  if  he  had  a  message  to  de- 
liver and  a  work  to  do,  and  as  if  he  would  do  that,  and  care 
for  nothing  else,  on  the  present  occasion. 

When  he  began  to  speak,  though  I  had  heard  of  his  Fife- 
shii-e  accent,  or  rather  broad  Scotch  brogue,  the  sonorous 
quaintness  and  earnestness  of  his  voice  surprised  me.  In  pray- 
er, I  was  sometimes  mystified  at  first,  by  such  expressions 
sounding  as  the  following  :  "  O  Lard,  a  gude  and  a  biassed 
thang  ut  az,  to  luve  and  to  sarve  tha  ;  and  a  bettir  thang  ut 
az,  to  san  aganst  tha.  0  Lard,  may  ol  th'  Kraschun  grasses 
ba  in  us  and  grow,  partakoolyrly  the  grass  of  fath."  By 
bettir  there,  or  rather  betthei',  he  meant  bitter;  though,  as 
he  first  uttered  it,  it  struck  my  ear  and  my  soul  as  terrible 
or  confounding  sentiment  !  The  disciples  of  Emmons  could 
scarcely  go  it  I     Some  of  his  expressions,  however,  were  sim- 


36  SPECIMENS. 

pie,  filial,  and  beautiful,  as  well  as  touching,  in  an  eminent 
degree.  One  I  will  quote,  as  I  well  remember  it,  in  the 
main  :  "  May  our  luve  lor  tha,  our  Master  and  Lard,  ba  true 
and  pramative  ;  may  it  ba  like  that  of  apowstles  and  the 
Kraschuns  of  the  martyr  ages  ;  may  wa  sarvc  tha  bakous  wa 
luve  tha,  and  luve  tha  bakous  wa  delight  to  do  tha  honor." 
1  give  these  as  the  best  approximate  specimens  of  his  enun- 
ciation and  his  utterance  that  I  can  recollect  or  command — 
certainly  from  no  thought  or  allowance  of  caricature,  and 
with  a  tender  demur  lest  I  should  seem  to  disparage  him 
with  any  reader.  His  peculiarities  soon  lost  their  quality  as 
strange  or  ungrateful,  and  became  easy  and  musical,  alike  to 
the  ear  and  the  mind.  The  strength  and  the  wealth  of  his 
thoughts  soon  carried  us  in  the  wake  of  his  prosperous  men- 
tal navigation,  and  we  all  felt  the  pleasure  and  the  safety 
of  such  a  helmsman,  as  we  sailed  with  him,  unanimous  and 
happy,  with  the  port  of  the  celestial  city  almost  peering  to 
our  view.  Indeed,  as  I  became  wonted  to  his  voice  and  his 
way,  they  lost  all  their  momentary  oflense,  and  seemed  rath- 
er transmuted,  by  association,  into  attractions,  and  beauties, 
and  hai'mouies  of  masterly  oratory. 

1  will,  however,  give  one  more  specimen.  His  pronunci- 
ation of  the  word  virtue  was  quite  racy  and  peculiar.  Very 
often  the  e  was  continental ;  as  a  in  day,  and  sometimes  as 
a  in  far.  Thus,  inculcating  the  sentiment  that  we  must  be 
justified  by  grace  through  faith,  and  endeavoring  to  expose 
and  explode  the  rival  sentiment  of  good  works  for  the  basis, 
he  said,  disparaging  the  proud  claims  of  human  virtue,  speak- 
ing it  with  pungency  and  earnestness,  thus — "  Varchy  az  not 
the  price  of  hivin."  And,  indeed,  his  peculiarities  of  the 
sort  were  many  and  pervading ;  but,  like  others,  I  observed 
them  only  at  first,  and  felt  equally  that  they  were  both  in- 
corrigible and  also  respectable,  as  his,  rising  in  their  associa- 
tions, till  entertained  with  favor  and  pleasure  by  his  whole 
audience,  though  to  many  of  them  they  were  too  natural  to 


SIJPKKIOR    TO    IT.  37 

be  observable  ;  certainly  they  were  in  no  sense  offensive  or 
disagreeable.  But  in  Edinburgh,  where  they  think  the  En- 
glish is  spoken  as  well  as  written  by  themselves  to  perfec- 
tion, orthoepy  and  all,  some  of  them  all'ect  to  criticise  him 
for  his  local  vulgarities  of  pronunciation  ;  though  every  schol- 
ar of  them  has  himself  unconsciously  some  of  the  accent,  by 
which  the  ear  of  an  Englishman  or  an  American  could  in- 
stantly detect  them,  though  they  are  all  unconscious  of  the 
fact ;  as  one,  a  native,  I  think,  of  Glasgow,  said  to  me,  de- 
nying it,  "  Why,  ya  wad  na  knaw  me  by  my  brog,  wad  ye  ?" 
I  felt  tempted,  in  good  humor,  almost  to  mock  him,  and  re- 
ply, "  Naw,  Sandy,  ya'r  th'  mon  far  that,  ya  knaw  ;  I  dinna 
ken  the  thang  in  what  yer  sain." 

But  the  way  of  Chalmers  was  peculiar,  not  vulgar  ;  yet  no 
one  could  suspect  or  imagine  it  from  reading  his  writings  ; 
and  he,  if  not  unconscious  of  it,  was  not  at  all  embarrassed 
by  it.  He  was  too  elevated  in  all  his  thoughts  for  such  trifles 
to  affect  him.  He  was  really  superior  alike  to  the  impor- 
tunity and  the  impertinence  of  things  inconsiderable  and  con- 
temptible. 

It  is  said,  that,  conscious  of  his  vocal  pecuharities,  and 
viewing  thera  as  much  incorrigible,  as  they  were  native  and 
vernacular,  he  rose  philosophically  above  it,  esteeming  it  of 
no  importance,  and  superinducing  an  earnest  naturalness  of 
manner,  prosperous  in  spite  of  it,  and  ever  superior  to  it. 
Every  man  should  be  himself  in  the  pulpit  and  every  where 
else.  As  his  own  countrymen  were  less  conusant  or  conscious 
of  it,  and  as,  in  the  ears  of  others  of  the  great  English  tongue, 
one  could  never  fail  impressively  to  observe  it,  I  may  assume 
this  as  the  justification  of  a  friendly  pen  in  the  present  notice 
of  it. 

His  matter,  and  style,  and  affluence  of  thought,  especially 
his  eloquence  of  expression,  as  a  preacher,  the  world  knows  ; 
his  manner,  as  a  whole,  it  is  the  privilege  of  only  a  compar- 
ative few  of  his  readers  to  have  seen  and  heard.     All  these 


38 


GREAT    PRAISE    FRO.M    MASON. 


combined  make  his  admirers  and  eulogists.  One  compli- 
ment, uttered  by  the  late  Rev.  John  Mitchel  Mason,  D.D.  of 
New  York,  is  quite  surpassing,  if  not  the  greatest  ever  sin- 
cerely and  spontaneously  pronounced  on  a  modern  preacher 
of  the  Gospel.  It  Avas  certainly  sincere,  as  well  as  emotional 
and  extemporaneous.  That  of  Louis  le  Grand  to  Massillon, 
though  more  famed,  is  certainly  inferior. 

Having  heard  of  it  in  America,  I  asked  a  worthy  and  in- 
telligent lady  in  Glasgow,  at  whose  house  I  was,  if  she  had 
heard  of  it  ?  when  she  replied— More,  sir.  I  heard  the  thing 
Itself.  It  occurred  in  my  house,  and  in  this  room.  Dr.  Mason 
was  sitting  about  where  you  sit,  just  returned  from  church  ; 
and  I  was  impatient  to  hear  his  opinion  of  my  own  honored 
pastor,  for  many  reasons,  as  you  know  ;*  and  hence  I  asked 
him,  Avhile  he  seemed  absent  as  in  reverie  —  Pray,  tell  me, 
dear  sir,  your  opinion.  What  think  you  of  Dr.  Chalmers  ?' 
He  paused  in  vacancy,  and  I  repeated  the  question,  when  he 
answered— What  I  think  of  him  ?  very  little,  madam,  I  as- 
sure you  ;  I  think  very  little  of  him.  I  forgot  him  during  the 
sermon— he  forgot  himself;  he  hid  himself;  and  put  in  the 
foreground,  alone  in  sight,  the  Master— the  theme— the  Gos- 
pel ;  all  in  the  clear  light  of  heaven  displayed ;  so  that  I 
thought  of  these  only— not  of  him  at  all. 

She  added,  what  I  had  also  heard  from  our  mutual  friend, 
Bruen,  at  home,  its  proper  supplement,  and  what  was,  with 
the  former,  thus  happily  authenticated.  Dr.  Mason  went  in 
the  afternoon  or  evening,  said  she,  to  hear  the  learned  and 
eloquent  Dr.  Dick  ;  but  his  style  was  as  unlike  that  of  Chal- 
mers as  possible— it  was  fine,  sentimental,  soothing,  and  ele- 
gant ;  as  his  delivery  was  soft  and  gentle,  with  nothing  ag- 
gressive or  exciting  in  the  whole  of  it.  Hence  I  asked  him, 
in  turn,  what  he  thought  of  our  other  great  preacher  ?  He 
replied,  Very   little,  madam.     I   had   no  room   left  in  my 

*  He  was  her  mother's  pastor ;  herself  a  native  American,  born  on 
Long  Island. 


HIS    SERMON    THAT    I    HEARD.  39 

thoughts  for  all  his  feminine  luenbrations — I  was  too  full  of 
the  manly  and  the  mighty  morning  services.  Indeed",  his 
heavenly  sprinklings  scarce  made  a  ripple  on  the  surface  of 
the  flowing  stream  of  my  meditations.  Perhaps  I  did  him 
no  justice  in  the  way  of  proper  attention.  And  yet,  how  could 
one  be  charmed  with  the  flow  of  purling  rivulets,  in  soft 
meanders,  through  meadows  of  verdure  and  gardens  of  spice- 
ry,  with  the  loud  echoes  of  Niagara  still  resounding  and  thun- 
dering in  his  ears  I 

Mason  was  a  judge — and  the  same  wit  from  many  another 
would  pass  for  less,  justly,  with  those  who  knew  him  as,  in 
his  day,  without  a  rival  or  an  equal,  the  giant  pulpit  rheto- 
rician of  New  York. 

It  was  a  noble  and  a  generous  instance  of  the  laudari  a 
laudato,  a  great  preacher  praised  by  a  great  praised  preach- 
er— and  plainly  with  no  envy,  no  efibrt,  no  affectation,  no  sor- 
did motive  ;  truth  and  feeling  alone  having  inspired  the  bosom 
of  greatness  to  utter  its  own  revealings,  in  this  and  in  the  for- 
mer instance. 

But  I  may  tell  my  own  impressions  of  his  sermon.  His 
text  was  announced,  as  Hev.  22  :  11.  He.  that  is  U7ijust, 
let  him  be  unjust  still ;  and  he  that  is  filthy,  let  him  be 
filthy  still ;  and  he  that  is  righteous,  let  him  be  righteous 
still ;  and  he  that  is  holy,  let  hitn  be  holy  still. 

The  sermon  is  now  before  the  world,  in  his  published  works. 
Yet  I  have  not  seen  it  there,  and  the  fact  may  be  unreal, 
though  others  have  reported  or  suggested  it.  It  was  often 
preached  by  him  ;  and  has  been  criticised  by  many,  not  with- 
out favor  and  laudation.  I  was  sensible  to  its  merits  as  a 
whole,  as  also  dazzled  with  its  brilliants.  My  objections  to 
it  were  almost  instinctive,  and  chiefly  two  only. 

First.  It  was  severely  topical,  not  textual,  in  its  total  plan 
and  finish.  No  adequate  explanation  ;  and  especially  no 
clear  fixing  of  the  point,  in  reference  to  sinner  or  to  saint, 
where  the  words  apply,  as  beyond  it  aU  must  remain  so  still  ; 


40  TWO    FAULTS    IN    IT. 

and  then  each  class  becomes  unalterable.     This  seemed  to 
me  a  defect  of  a  grave  character. 

Second.  He  told  of  the  saint  as  holy  and  righteous,  and 
of  the  sinner  as  filthy  and  unju&t ;  but  how  a  sinner  could 
become  a  saint,  if  this  indeed  were  possible,  he  seemed  not 
to  tell  us — whereas,  this  very  thing  is,  in  a  sermon,  certainly 
in  one  of  this  class,  a  cardinal  virtue  of  a  preacher,  and  nec- 
essary to  the  edification  of  all  ordinary  hearers.  He  told  us 
faithfully  and  well  what  would  become  of  the  sinner,  what 
of  the  saint,  in  the  coming  world  ;  but  as  to  the  material 
from  which  saints  are  made,  or  that  saints  by  grace  accrue 
from  sinners,  and  that  sinners  might  become  saints,  and  how 
this  could  be  done,  and  what  hope  of  such  a  change  there 
might  be  for  any  sinner  there,  he  comparatively  told  us  not : 
on  the  contrary,  the  desperate  alternative  seemed  to  be  im- 
plied. If  you  are  filthy,  be  so  still ;  if  unjust,  be  so  still.  Tills, 
indeed,  he  meant  not ;  yet  this  seemed  to  be  the  impression 
really  produced,  though  perhaps  unconsciously,  on  the  mind 
of  the  irreligious  hearer.  The  precise  opposite  of  this  should 
have  been  the  luminous  and  the  living  consequence.  This 
was  the  sermon  I  read  in  London,  and  now  heard  in  Glas- 
gow. My  estimate  was  increasingly  the  same.  It  is  a  great 
fault  or  defect,  and  one  which  is  good  against  all  the  sermons 
I  heard  in  Scotland.  They  are  too  abstract,  or  general,  or 
speculative,  or  hypothetical,  in  their  statements.  To  show  a 
sinner,  with  due  energy  and  directness,  that  he  must  become 
a  saint,  or  pei'ish  forever  ;  that  this  change  is  quite  practi- 
cable ;  that  his  own  is  the  responsibility  for  its  occurrence  ; 
that  he  ought  to  seek  it  in  the  way  of  God  ;  that  rightly  to 
seek,  is  surely  to  find  it ;  that  in  the  present,  not  the  future 
world,  is  all  his  opportunity  ;  that  now  is  the  accepted  time, 
and  there  is  no  2^<'f'J(>rmance  of  the  doing  of  it,  except  on  the 
now  principle  ;  that  procrastination  is  deceit,  as  well  as  crime  ; 
that  not  he  for  the  Spirit,  but  the  Spirit  for  him,  is  waiting, 
saying,  To-day,  if  you  will  hear  his  voice,  harden  not  your 


HIS    GREAT    EXCELLENCE.  41 

hearts;  that  to  reject  oflered  mercy,  and  to  neglect  so  great 
salvation,  is  the  most  aggravated  siu  against  your  own  souls, 
as  well  as  against  God  ;  that  this  sin  leads  to  all  others,  and 
necessitates  your  doom  ;  and  that  the  justice  of  your  condem- 
nation, in  all  this,  will  be  terribly  enhanced,  and  gloriously 
illustrated  at  last,  should  you,  by  the  sovereign  order  of  His 
throne,  die  in  your  sins,  filthy  and  unjust,  with  the  awful 
fiat  of  the  text  confirmed  against  you  forever  :  all  this,  I  say, 
virtually  impressed  on  the  mind  of  the  sinner,  evinces  the 
KIND  of  sermons  that  we  ought  to  preach ;  and  the  type  of 
impression  that  we  ought  to  make  ;  and  the  very  scope  and 
drift  of  the  written  word,  to  radiate  and  seal,  as  the  means 
of  actuating  every  hearer,  practically,  to  make  good  his  re- 
treat _/(??•  refuge,  to  lay  hold  on  thehoiJe  set  before  us  in  the 
Gospel — to  do  this,  by  God's  offered  help,  and  to  do  this 
while  he  may,  and  to  do  this  promptly  and  sincerely,  by  the 
exercise  of  faith  in  the  testimony  of  God,  corresponding  with 
God,  in  that  obedience  of  faith,  to  which  the  Gospel  sum- 
mons and  obligates  every  rational  hearer.  He  that  hath  an 
ear,  let  him  hear  ichat  the  Sinrit  saith  to  the  churches. 

It  is  not  for  me  to  praise  so  great  a  preacher,  and  I  am  far 
enough  from  any  desire  or  thought  of  disparaging  him.  But 
in  this  fraternal  censure,  while  I  regret  it,  I  say  only  what 
honesty,  and  a  sense  of  usefulness,  alike  inspire ;  and  nothing 
for  the  sake  of  criticism,  nothing  at  all  with  the  least  idea  of 
his  depreciation.  If  any  man's  affluence  of  fame  could  bear 
some  animadversion,  surely  here  one  need  not  be  afraid  to  be 
hearty  and  truthful,  and  free  in  his  observations. 

His  manner,  also,  had  some  faults,  if  rules  or  canons  are  to 
guide  us  ;  such  as  Campbell  or  Whately  has  with  philosophic 
eminence  prescribed.  But  it  had  excellences  too,  such  as  di- 
rectness to  his  object,  earnestness,  naturalness,  symmetry,  and 
bravery  evinced,  superior  to  any  low  consideration,  bent  only 
on  pleasing  the  Master  and  benefiting  the  people.  In  a  good 
sense,  not  in  a  proud,  or  a  vain,  or  an  affected  one,  Chalmers 


42  UNEXPECTED    INVITATION. 

seemed  always  above  his  audience,  and  over  them,  for  good. 
They  were  before  him,  not  he  before  them  ;  while,  as  an  em- 
bassador for  Christ,  he  held  his  court  in  the  sanctuary,  and 
pursued  his  high  negotiations,  in  the  spirit  and  on  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  commission  he  held,  from  so  great  and  so  good  a 
Master. 

In  the  afternoon,  he  preached  from  Rom.  7  :  6,  and  his 
sermon  struck  me  as  less  scholastic,  as  more  solid  and  pas- 
toral. Its  garniture  and  imagery  were  less  conspicuous,  its 
devotional  character  more  impressive  and  powerful.  Form- 
alism in  the  worship  of  God  was  shown  to  be  pharisaisra 
only,  matter  more  than  mind,  appearance  more  than  reality, 
and  hypocrisy  rather  than  sincerity.  He  illustrated  spiritu- 
ality as  the  only  philosophy  of  Avorship,  especially  in  this  last 
and  best  dispensation  under  the  Messiah  ;  evincing  the  glare 
of  the  diflerence  between  service  in  7ietvness  of  spirit,  and  in 
the  oldness  of  the  letter,  and  between  Saul  in  his  formalities 
and  Paul  in  his  spiritualities. 

After  the  morning  service  was  concluded,  some  scenes  oc- 
curred worthy  of  notice  here.  It  seemed  a  long  time  in  pros- 
pect before  our  turn  should  come  to  make  our  exit,  so  mass- 
ive was  the  crowd  in  their  motion  as  well  as  their  multitude. 
"While  we  waited,  and  my  eye  expatiated,  front  and  rear, 
over  the  architecture  of  the  edifice,  and  its  slow  elapsing  ten- 
antry, outward  bound,  the  beadle  of  the  parish  came  to  our 
pew,  and  asked  Mr.  Collins  for  me  by  name.  His  message 
was,  that  Dr.  Chalmers  desired  to  see  me  in  the  vestry. 
This  truly  seemed  strange  enough.  I  had  letters  to  him,  but 
had  not  delivered  them,  and  could  not  conceive  that  Dr. 
Chalmers  had  ever  heard  of  my  existence.  The  summons, 
however,  was  direct,  and  obedience  was  any  thing  but  disa- 
greeable. I  was  soon  in  his  presence,  and  in  that  of  some 
select  friends,  conversing  joyously  around  him.  He  greeted 
me  with  a  natural  and  generous  ardor ;  said  I  was  welcome 
in  Scotland,  and  that  he  had  been  looking  for  me,  and  dis- 


HIS    SOCIAL    MANNER!?.  43 

covered  somehow  that  I  was  in  Mr.  Collins'  pew  this  morn- 
ing. 

1.  I  sincerely  thank  you,  Doctor  Chalmers;  and  rejoice 
much  to  meet  you.  But  it  is  a  mystery  how  you  could  have 
known  any  thing  about  me. 

2.  Oh  I  in  several  ways,  especially  as  your  gude  tvijie  has 
made  quite  a  post-office  of  me.  There  are  several  letter^ 
waiting  for  you,  at  No.  3  Forres  Street,  New  City,  Edin- 
burgh ;  and  when  we  are  both  there,  I  shall  see  you  of  morn- 
ings— mind,  you  are  to  come  and  breakfast  with  me  every 
morning,  regularly,  while  you  stay  in  Edinburgh,  and  we 
shall  have  many  a  topic  together  before  you  return.  I  am 
glad  to  see  you  here  ;  but  you  seem  a  younger  man  than  I 
thought  you,  from  some  accounts  that  I  had. 

1.  As  to  your  kind  invitation,  it  seems  too  generous  and 
extensive — my  only  objection  to  it.  I  shall,  however,  come 
and  see  you  quite  as  often  as  I  ought,  probably,  not  to  weary 
you,  Prov.  25  :  17,  and  shall  be  very  happy  to  let  you  choose 
your  topics,  though  mine  must  be  the  profit  of  a  listener 
mainly. 

He  then  introduced  me  to  Mrs.  Chalmers  and  some  others 
of  the  company,  and  was  really  charming  in  the  good-na- 
tured ease  and  Christian  frankness  of  his  manners,  in  the 
whole  interview.  When  we  hear  or  read  at  a  distance  of 
some  distinguished  person,  and  especially  if  his  character  wins 
our  homage  or  deserves  our  admiration,  we  almost  enact  his 
apotheosis  in  our  imagination,  dissociate  his  fame  and  his 
greatness  from  all  the  proper  trivialities  of  humanity,  and  can 
scarce  think  that  he  breathes,  eats,  sleeps,  walks,  laughs,  and 
suffers  life's  infirmities,  like  other  men — especially  if  he  is  dis- 
tinguished of  his  class,  as  a  monarch  or  a  clergyman  I  I 
would  here  record  it,  however,  as  the  result  of  all  I  have  ever 
seen  of  Chalmers,  that  his  manners,  as  perfectly  simple  and 
unaffected,  and  wholly  devoid  of  every  appearance  of  vanity 
or  boasting,  were  a  model  of  beauty,  nobly  unbent  and  charm- 


44  A    LABORIOUS    COMPOSER. 

ing  in  the  relations  of  private  life,  as  his  great  qualities  ever 
subsidized  our  admiration  in  public. 

About  a  week  afterward,  I  was  in  Edinburgh^  by  the  way 
of  Lochs  Lomond,  Katrine,  Veniiachar,  to  Stirling,  and  by  the 
Frith  of  Forth,  and  Leith,  to  that  renowned  city,  the  "Ath- 
ens" of  the  British  islands.  There  I  enjoyed  more  than  I 
hoped  of  the  personal  and  even  the  private  society  of  Chal- 
mers :  breakfasted  with  him  thrice,  dined  with  him  once  at 
the  house  of  a  common  friend,  and  once — last  and  best  of  it 
— spent  an  evening,  and  almost  the  whole  night,  with  him, 
at  home  and  alone,  except  the  presence  of  his  eldest  daugh- 
ter,* viewed,  in  her  loveliness,  as  a  rich  accession  to  the 
circle. 

Chalmers  was  said  to  compose  with  care  and  pain,  or  at 
least  with  eflbrt  and  elaborate  application ;  as  in  a  way  ab- 
solutely extemporaneous,  he  would  seldom  venture  to  do  any 
thing.  Hence  he  would  have  his  hours  of  study,  secluded 
and  inaccessible  ;  and  scarce  had  any  rule  of  exceptions,  for 
favorites  to  abuse,  and  notables  by  presumption  to  usurp. 
As  for  laborious  written  preparation,  men  in  any  elevated 
place,  and  ministers  especially,  might  worse  offend  by  the  op- 
posite quality.  He  was,  as  a  Christian,  profoundly  humble  ; 
as  a  man,  sincerely  and  amiably  modest — though  without  all 
unmanly  weakness  or  pusillanimity.  Hence  he  felt  that  his 
best  preparations,  with  all  the  scepe  vertas  stylum,  or  labor 
limes  et  mora,  that  Horace  inculcates,  were  never  too  good 
for  the  public,  and  especially  for  the  pulpit.  He  felt,  there- 
fore, the  necessity,  and  enforced  it,  of  literary  and  studious 
seclusion,  as  the  only  proper  way  in  which  to  discharge  his 
high  official  duties.  This  induced  system  in  all  his  economy 
of  time.  He  would  see  his  friends  in  the  morning,  happy  to 
meet  them  at  breakfast,  but  afterward,  no)i  est  inventus,  he 
was  not  at  their  service.  This  rule  he  owned  to  me,  and 
wondered  that  the  preachers  of  America  seemed  not  to  adopt 
*  Now  Mrs.  Rev.  Dr.  Hanna. 


AN    EVENING    APPOINTED.  45 

it.  ■  I  told  him  of  its  practical  difficulties  here  ;  he  replied, 
but  I  would  maintain  it.  The  interests  of  the  people  and  the 
cause  ahke  demand  it.  Are  pastors  in  America  such  drudg- 
es ?  Have  they  no  time  to  study  vi^ithout  interruption  ? 
Then  ought  they  to  be  more  than  human,  legitimately  to 
maintain  themselves  in  an  educated  community.  But  your 
best  preachers  steal  time  from  midnight,  wear  out  their 
strength,  are  crushed  under  their  burdens,  and,  as  soon  as 
their  health  goes — away  to  Europe  !  Now  this  way  is  no 
way ;  and  it  becomes  you  to  be  aggressive  and  pertinacious 
for  a  thorough  reform.  All  the  American  clergymen  I  have 
ever  seen  were  valetudinarians,  crossing  the  ocean  to  get 
some  release  from  onerous,  and  enervating,  and  incessant 
toils.     This  will  never  do.     It  is  quite  a  mistake  and  an  evil. 

It  was  now  that  we  projected  an  evening.  He  told  me, 
with  the  most  companionable  freedom,  that,  unless  interrupt- 
ed in  some  unexpected  way,  he  would  be  at  leisure  and  at 
home  next  Monday*  evening  :  so  come  then,  be  sure  ;  and  come 
early,  and  as  we  have  so  much  talking  to  do,  I  will  sit  it  out 
with  you,  if  it  takes  the  whole  night.  It  may  chance  to  rain 
or  be  a  heavy  Scotch  mist.  In  this  case,  we'll  be  likely  to 
encounter  no  disturber,  but  have  it  all  to  ourselves.  If  it 
rains  hard,  so  much  the  better  ;  we'll  have  fine  good  weather 
in  doors.  And  then  we'll  see  all  about  your  great  country ; 
your  projects  for  a  political  millennium  ;  your  late  temperance 
revelations  and  revolutions  ;  your  prospects  as  a  nation,  with 
all  your  ecclesiastical  system,  sustained  and  progressive,  on 
the  voluntary  principle  ;  your  education  ;  your  revivals  of  re- 
ligion ;  your  great  preachers ;  your  national  slavery ;  your 
heretics,  and  your  interminable  mixtures,  with  all  the  change- 
fulness  of  your  raw  and  your  recent  population ;  and  your 
swaying  forever,  from  one  side  to  the  other,  at  the  caprice  or 
the  cupidity  of  your  popular  masters. 

To  this  I  replied,  with  cheerfulness,  that  I  should  certain- 
*  September  16,  1833. 


46  ESTABLISHMENTS    IN    CONTROVERSY. 

lybe  there,  by  the  will  of  God  ;  should  meet  his  questions  on 
the  topics  with  pleasure  ;  not  object  to  the  lateness  of  the  en- 
gagement, provided  I  could  return  to  Douglas  Hotel,  so  as 
to  be  admitted  there  before  the  morrow's  dawn  ;  and  as  to 
the  rain,  I  could  only  say  success  fo  it  ;  I  shall  be  glad  to  see 
it  rain  hard,  especially  as  the  means  of  securing  a  colloquy  of 
the  requisite  protraction,  undisturbed. 

At  this  time,  the  grand  religious  question  that  was  in  agi- 
tation and  in  conflict  there  respected  the  utility  and  the  per- 
petuity of  ecclesiastical  establishments.  All  dissenters,  north 
of  the  Tweed,  were  combined  and  fierce  against  them.  They 
quoted  America  as  a  brilliant  demonstration  in  their  favor, 
and  were  much  disposed  to  learn  of  us  all  the  good  they  could, 
if  not  a  little  more.  Their  opponents  Avere,  in  temper  and 
argument,  as  much  against  us  and  the  voluntary  principle  ; 
and  their  grand  propugnator  was  Chalmers.  Arriving  there, 
as  I  did,  in  the  very  crisis  of  their  controversy,  I  was  no  neu- 
tral object  in  the  eyes  of  either  party.  The  one  claimed  me, 
and  expected  that,  of  course,  I  was  to  go  with  them,  shoulder 
to  shoulder.  The  other  desired  to  interrogate  me,  in  their 
own  way,  about  the  dreadful  moral  wastes  in  the  valley  of 
the  Mississippi,  the  general  destitution  of  the  means  of  grace, 
the  mighty  wants  of  whole  neighborhoods  and  districts  of  our 
people,  in  the  wide-spread  plains  and  savannas  of  our  great 
country.  Indeed,  when  I  came  home  from  the  Highlands,  so 
fatigued  that  I  thought  to  keep  an  incognito  for  a  while  at 
the  hotel,  till  I  was  fairly  rested,  and  could  find  time  for  some 
personal  adjustments  and  letter-writing  to  friends  at  home,  all 
this  was  exploded  in  a  queer  way.  My  rest  had  been  broken, 
and  I  thought  to  make  some  compensation,  after  retiring  late 
the  first  night,  by  late  rising  in  the  morning.  But,  no  ;  about 
seven,  a  loud  knocking  at  my  chamber-door  surprised  me — 
not  very  gratefully.  It  seemed  intolerable.  The  door  was 
locked,  and  at  first  I  felt  almost  tempted  to  set  it  at  defiance, 
and  give  no  answer.     But,  on  the  whole,  this  was  impracti- 


EARLY    VISIT.  47 

cable.  I  opened  the  door,  and  saw,  to  my  profound  astonish- 
ment, the  Kev.  Dr.  Heugh,  of"  Glasgow,  whose  acquaintance 
I  had  been  so  happy  as  to  make  a  few  weeks  before,  and 
whom,  with  reason,  I  had  learned  to  esteem  and  love.  What 
had  brought  him  there  ?  How  knew  he  that  I  had  arrived, 
that  I  was  in  that  house  and  that  apartment  ?  What  could 
he  want  of  me  so  early  ?  Why  so  earnest  and  thundering  ? 
Really,  I  was  almost  afraid  to  inquire,  lest  some  bad  news 
I'rom  home,  or  portent  hori'iblc  of  another  kind  was  now  to 
transpire.  To  my  wonder  and  dismay,  he  answered,  There  is 
a  great  public  breakfast  at  Waterloo  Hall  this  morning,  on 
the  subject  of  Dissent  and  Establishments.  All  our  friends 
are  there,  and  Avaiting  for  you.  They  are  quite  rejoiced  that 
they  may  be  availed  of  your  testimony — expect  a  speech  on 
the  occasion — can't  take  No  for  an  answer ;  so  I  have  come 
for  you,  my  dear  friend,  and  can  not  return  without  you. 

Much  as  I  loved  Dr.  Heugh  and  appreciated  his  amicable 
assault,  I  felt  as  if  it  could  not  be  endured — it  was  so  incon- 
venient, so  incongruous  to  all  my  plans.  I  was  fasting,  need- 
ed the  razor,  had  to  make  an  entire  toilet,  lacked  time,  had  all 
my  hours  pre-engaged,  aiid  besides,  felt  the  fatigues  of  mis- 
cellaneous travel  and  irregularity.  But,  said  he.  Go  at  it. 
I  have  ordered  your  breakfast  sent  you ;  in  about  twenty  min- 
utes I  shall  return  for  you.  So  be  lively,  my  dear  friend,  and 
meet  the  exigence,  as  I  know  you  can. 

I  surrendered,  like  Washington  at  Fort  Necessity,  and  in 
half  an  hour  entered  the  hall  with  my  brotherly  guide.  What 
a  breakfast  I  Three  hundred  dissenting  clergymen,  with 
about  fifty  distinguished  laymen,  men  of  renown  in  Athens, 
writers  to  the  Signet,  learned  in  the  law,  honored  in  the  re- 
views, versant  m  all  literature,  eminent  and  worthy  in  the 
Church;  and  of  all  denominations — Presbyterians,  Baptists, 
Congregationalists,  Methodists,  Episcopalians,  and  the  repre- 
sentatives of  almost  all  others  that  were  opposed  to  the  Scot- 
tish Establishment.     They  were  all  seated  at  three  or  four 


48  PUBLIC    BREAKFAST. 

tables,  parallel,  and  extending  the  whole  length  of  the  spa- 
cious area,  exee])t  one  at  the  I'uither  end,  running  across,  at 
the  centre  of  which  sat  their  chairman,  the  venerable  Dr.  Ped- 
dle, supported  by  a  host  of  vice-chairmen,  as  I  apprehended 
them,  on  his  right  and  on  his  left. 

As  we  entered,  the  whole  company  rose,  and  commenced 
a  clapping  welcome,  loud,  long,  and  in  full  concert.  I  knew 
it  was  not  to  me  personal,  but  the  cause  to  which,  in  their 
own  way,  they  would  commit  me.  So  borne  along,  I  was 
introduced  to  the  chairman,  who  thus  addressed  me,  as  I 
breathed  their  stimulating  atmosphere,  heard  their  noise,  and 
stood  not  perfectly  tranquil,  in  the  midst  of  them,  the  object 
of  their  concentrated  expectation.  Wc  welcome  you,  dear 
sir,  to  our  company  on  this  occasion.  I  occupy  this  chair,  be- 
cause my  brethren  here  would  put  me  in  it,  and  not  because 
I  am  fit  for  the  service,  or  worthy  of  the  honor.  I  can  not 
make  a  speech,  but  you  can,  and  we  all  desire  to  hear  one 
from  you.  "VVe  are  endeavoring  to  do  for  Scotland  what  has 
been  done  long  ago  for  happier  America ;  to  divorce  the 
Church  and  the  State,  rendering  to  Ccesar  the  things  that 
are  Ccesar  s,  and  to  God  the  things  tliat  are  God's.  On 
this  point,  we  are  all  in  a  ferment  now  in  Edinburgh.  Some 
think  that  you  Americans  are  all  going  to  hell,  for  want  of 
an  establishment ;  we  think  rather  you  are  all  going  in  the 
opposite  direction,  through  grace,  because  you  are  not  cursed 
with  it.  But  we  want  facts,  and  you  can  give  them  to  us. 
America  is,  just  now,  a  great  topic  with  us  ;  and  hence  we 
were  so  glad  when  it  was  announced  that  you  were  here, 
and  could  give  us  your  testimony,  as  well  as  your  informa- 
tion, to  the  truth.  We  therefore  despatched  our  beloved  friend, 
Dr.  Heugh,  for  you,  and  rejoice  that  his  mission  has  been  so 
successful.  Permit  me,  then,  dear  sir,  to  welcome  you  here, 
and  to  ask  you  freely  to  say  to  us  whatever  you  can  or  will, 
for  we  are  a  free  meeting.  I  rejoined  in  brief,  told  them 
facts,  remarked  on  my  relations  as  a  stranger,  and  refused  to 


I'l  iiiuus   '/.i;ai,.  49 

make  a  partisan  cause  with  them  or  others  ;  much  as  1  co- 
incided with  them  in  sentiment,  much  as  I  loved  my  own 
country,  and  wished  devoutly  well  to  theirs.  A  foreigner 
abroad  ought  always  to  refrain  from  intermeddling  with  po- 
litical affairs,  especially  in  the  country  he  visits,  and  where 
he  is  generously  welcomed  and  entertained.  A  busy-bodyin 
other  men's  tiiatters  is  classed  in  the  kscriptures  with  an  evil- 
doer, a  thief,  and  even  with  a  tnurderer.  And  though  it  is 
an  evil,  which,  as  Americans,  we  are  quite  habituated  to  en- 
dure from  others,  some  foreigners  who  visit  us  having  the 
manners  most  offensively  and  remorselessly  to  enact  it ;  yet, 
as  two  wrongs  will  not  make  a  right,  we  ought  to  be  better 
bred,  if  others  are  not,  than  to  copy  so  bad  an  example.  The 
vice  of  pragmaticalness,  against  communities  or  individu- 
als, is  ever  associated  with  arrogance  and  sordid  principles. 
Hence  I  stood  on  my  own  convictions  of  propriety,  and  refused 
to  go  a  campaign  against  the  advocates  of  ecclesiastical  es- 
tablishments, or  to  right  the  battles  of  another  hemisphere, 
even  with  those  whose  principles  I  approved  and  preferred. 
But  a  personal  remorse  influenced  me.  They  were  covering 
the  name  of  Chalmers  with  inundations  of  abuse.  He  was 
the  only  peg,  they  said,  that  kept  the  deleterious  and  ruinat- 
ing system  from  lapsing  to  its  own  destruction.  Indeed,  after 
attending  that  meeting  of  furious  Reformers,  and  sympathiz- 
ing with  their  fury  not  at  all,  I  felt  almost  bereft  of  a  good 
conscience,  and  as  disqualified  to  face  fraternally  that  distin- 
guished person,  and  others  of  his  sympathy,  who  deserved 
my  affectionate  regard. 

One  curious  fact  amused  me — the  Episcopalians  there  are 
all  terrible  disseiiters  I  The  establishment  north  of  the  T\\'eed 
is  Presbyterian  alone.  Consequently,  the  prelatists,  with  their 
meeting-houses  and  their  chapels,  are  there  at  a  discount ; 
as  are  all  their  mitres,  crosiers,  and  vestments,  among  the 
Knoxian  and  Presbyterian  Churches.  Hence,  in  their  dis- 
senting agitations,  they  herd  with  all  the  others  ;  they  debate 

C 


50  (  111  KClJiMEN     l\     tiCUTLANU. 

and  vote,  and  vocil'crate  Avith  ihem,  use  and  appropriate  their 
arguments,  endorse  and  adopt  their  principles,  and  make  com- 
mon cause,  if  not  catholic  display,  with  them,  as  brethren 
in  adversity.  One  of  them,  a  loud-spoken  clerk  at  that  meet- 
ing, in  converse  with  me  after  its  adjournment,  denounced 
the  principle  and  the  policy  of  establishments,  with  singular 
virulence  against  the  character  and  agency  of  Chalmers.  1 
remonstrated — You  are  opposed,  my  friend,  only  because  you 
are  north  of  the  Tweed.  At  the  South,  you  would,  I  sus- 
pect, become  a  Conservative.  You  are  aware  that  in  Lon- 
don Chalmers  is  honored  and  quoted  by  ministers,  peer.s, 
royal  dukes,  princes  of  the  blood,  and  all  the  pyramid  of  cler- 
gy. How  then  can  you  speak  at  this  rate  against  establish- 
ments, simply  because  you  live  in  North  Britain  ?  He  re- 
joined— No  such  thing  I  I  hate  the  whole  affair,  here  and 
every  where.  On  that  point,  I  go  the  entire  figure  with  you, 
and  am  quite  an  American. 

On  the  anticipated  evening,  as  1  loft  the  mansion  of  a  friend, 
late  in  the  afternoon,  for  that  of  Chalmers,  I  had  the  satis- 
faction to  see  it  begin  to  rain,  arriving  through  the  drops  at 
his  door.  The  I'ain  increased,  and  became  at  once  our  pro- 
tection, and  an  assurance  of  privacy  in  the  projected  inter- 
view. It  was  truly  memorable,  as  well  as  useful  and  de- 
lightful. The  hours  flew  over  it  on  golden  pinions  ;  and  at 
a  late  hour,  if  not  rather  an  early  one,  I  returned  contented 
in  the  rain  to  the  hotel. 

Our  topics  have  been  already  indicated.  Chalmers  threw 
himself  on  the  sofa,  supine  and  at  ease  ;  and  exemplifying  the 
kind  good-nature  that  his  manners  inspired  in  others,  cozy 
and  confiding,  he  began  the  conversation  about  America.  Our 
country,  at  that  time,  was  more  a  riddle  and  a  wonder  than  it 
is  now,  in  all  the  British  islands.  It  was  before  the  steam- 
navigation  had  been  either  established  or  generally  consider- 
ed practicable.  Of  course,  we  were  not  then  such  near  neigh- 
bors as  now.     The  Atlantic  was  then  the  mighty  and  insu- 


i^TEAM    I'OWKUS    AND    rUOSPECTS.  51 

perable  barrier  to  all  neighborly  iulercourse  ;  almost  realizing 
the  prudent  day-dream  of  Horace — which  we  may  view  as 
the  gnomon  of  all  the  geographic  wisdom  ol"  the  Augustan 
Age  ;  marking  the  prodigious  advances  of  science  and  civil- 
ization in  eighteen  centuries — that  the  ocean  was  ordained 
by  Heaven  on  purpose  to  curb  the  presumption  of  mankind, 
and  keep  the  opposite  shores  of  continents  separated  and  dis- 
sociable. 

Neqiiidquam  Dcus  abscidit 
Prudens  oceano  dissociabili 

Terrcis,  si  tamcn  iinpise 

Non  tangenda  rates  transiliunt  vada. 

We  no  longer  think  it  impious  to  sail  any  where,  or  even  to 
circumnavigate  the  globe  ;  we  know,  as  they  did  not,  that 
the  world  is  a  globe  ;  we  bridge  the  ocean  with  sociable 
steam  ;  we  give  news  to  the  world,  and  make  the  lightnings 
bear  our  messages  through  and  over  itr;  we  shall  soon  talk 
with  the  antipodes  as  our  neighbors,  and  the  very  ocean  shall 
imbosom  and  protect  the  metallic  conductors  of  our  commu- 
nicated thought  ;  and  not  curses,  but  blessings,  shall  be  in- 
terchanged and  propagated  through  all  the  related  and  pacif- 
icated  habitations  of  mankind. 

The  ignorance  of  our  country,  which  has  often  astonished 
and  amused  our  countrymen  traveling  in  England,  yet  re- 
mains, in  many  places,  like  a  huge  iceberg  floating  toward 
the  equator,  with  only  some  of  its  rough  coating  melted  and 
flowing  in  the  solar  rays  ;  an  iceberg  still,  though  destined 
to  dissolve  in  warmer  latitudes,  as  it  approaches  their  clear 
and  balmy  atmosphere.  Some  of  the  remarks  of  Chalmers 
were  singular  in  this  relation,  but  very  corrigible  and  kind, 
and,  as  entertaining  and  curious,  I  give  them  here.  If  any 
of  his  countrymen  were  prejudiced,  or  contracted,  or  invidious 
toward  us,  none  of  these  sordid  attributes  belong  to  him.  He 
was  a  noble  of  the  realm  of  God  ;  and  magnanimity  belonged 
at  once  to  his  capacity,  to  his  discipline,  to  his  habits,  to  his 


52  SCOTLAND    AND    AMERICA. 

nature,  and  to  his  character.  He  had  a  high  and  a  gener- 
ous appreciation  of  America  ;  he  rejoiced  in  all  its  develop- 
ing greatness ;  he  seemed  to  realize  a  personal  interest  in  its 
prosperity  ;  he  had  no  atrabiliary  fears,  no  arrogant  and  ul- 
tra-English prognostications,  against  the  glorious  hopes  and 
promises  of  our  republic.  We  are  to  view  him  as  a  friend, 
even  Avhere  his  free-spoken  thought  seems  to  question,  to  im- 
peach, or  to  accuse  us.  Scotland,  indeed,  has  some  special 
reasons,  and  some  patriotic  affinities,  of  friendship  for  Amer- 
ica. The  land  o'  cakes  and  the  land  o'  hearts  may  well  love 
the  vaster  and  the  related  land  far  ofT,  the  land  of  cataracts 
and  mountains  ;  of  enterprise  and  independence  ;  of  emi- 
grants and  natives  in  national  brotherhood  commingling  ;  of 
Christianity,  and  Protestant  religious  freedom  for  all  man- 
kind ;  the  laud  of  refuge,  and  of  welcome,  and  of  home  for 
thousands  of  Scotia's  brave  sons  and  bonny  daughters ;  and, 
finally,  the  hospitable  and  the  capacious  country  of  refuge 
for  the  millions  of  the  persecuted  and  the  persecuting  world. 
We  have,  indeed,  our  inconsistencies,  our  faults,  our  sins  I 
The  mercy  of  Heaven  shield  us  from  our  deserts,  at  the  hand 
of  his  terrible  righteousness,  who  reigns  there  and  here  I  and 
that  same  mercy  correct  us,  that  Ave  may  be,  to  please  HIM, 
the  great  model  nation  of  the  world  I     But  to  our  colloquy. 

1.  I  am  surprised,  Dr.  Chalmers,  to  speak  plainly,  at  some 
of  the  questions,  and  the  manner  of  putting  them,  which  meet 
me  in  Europe,  about  the  younger  hemisphere.  Is  it  the  pol- 
icy of  the  Holy  Alliance,  or  of  local  monarchy  and  establish- 
ments, to  make  us  such  an  enigma  to  clever  persons  even  in 
Great  Britain,  to  say  nothing  of  the  more  papal  tenebrosity 
of  the  Continent  ? 

2.  Well,  many  causes  conspire,  I  think,  to  produce  the  re- 
sult. It  is  a  fact  that  you  are  not  known  by  us  as  you  ought 
to  be,  or  even  as  we  are  by  you  ;  and  you  are  to  us  a  won- 
der, a  curiosity,  and  a  theme  of  ever-varying  interest  and 
complexity  ;  or,  rather,  a  great  thesaurus  or  museum  of  these, 


OURS    TFIE    DAUGHTER    COUNTRY.  58 

in  pai'ticulai'  and  often  in  astounding  phases  of  demonstra- 
tion. Yours  is  a  wonderl'ul  country  and  a  great  one  ;  and  it 
strikes  me  as  a  mighty  original,  since  history  affords  no  par- 
allel to  it  in  many  of  its  great  aspects.  But  I  am  yet  to 
study,  perhaps  literally  to  explore  you,  that  I  may  feel  that 
my  data  are  trustworthy,  when  I  speak  or  argue  about  the 
United  States,  or  the  daughter  country,  as  we  sometimes 
call  you. 

1.  Our  filial  feelings  are  not  offended  at  the  designation. 
Some  of  us,  however,  with  too  many  fitting  monuments,  rec- 
ollect some  very  unmotherly  and  very  cruel  conduct  that  we 
have  endured  from  the  parent  country.  But  let  us  register 
even  our  real  wrongs  in  the  sand,  our  received  benefactions 
on  tablets  of  granite  rock.  You  speak  of  exploring  us  ;  I 
hope  that  means  that  you  will  actually  visit  our  country. 

2.  It  does.  I  should  rejoice  to  accomplish  such  a  plan. 
But  its  difficulties  are  various,  perhaps  insuperable.  Still,  I 
entertain  the  pleasant  imagination,  and  am  not  sure  at  all 
that  it  will  not  yet  be  realized.  At  any  rate,  I  intend  to  tell 
you  now  my  beau  ideal  of  it,  yes,  of  a  tour  through  the  states 
of  your  great  country. 

1.  I  shall  rejoice  to  hear  it,  especially  if  there  is  any  prob- 
ability at  all  that  it  may  ever  be  realized. 

3.  Pa,  will  you  go  alone — or  take  ma  and  some  of  us  with 
you  ?     I  should  like  to  be  of  the  party. 

2.  We  shall  attend  to  details  afterward,  my  dear.  Now 
I  am  getting  on  in  life.  In  another  heptade  of  years  I  shall 
have  reached  threescore  ;  and  the  chair  of  Theology  in  Ed- 
inburgh ought  hardly  to  have  an  incumbent  who  is  over 
sixty.  Hence,  if  I  live  to  reach  that  age,*  I  am  thinking  to 
vacate  my  post,  and  go  to  America — if  Mrs.  Chalmers  will 
go  with  me.  It  will  be  easy  just  to  take  a  steamer  in  the 
Clyde,  go  to  Liverpool,  and  in  one  of  your  good  and  safe  lin- 
ers embark  for  the  London  of  the  West,  your  famous  New 

*  He  died,  May,  1847,  in  his  sixty-eighth  year. 


1)4  II  ks    BKAC     IDEAL    OF    A    VISIT. 

York  ;  tliat  would  be  inj'  port  and  my  route,  you  know. 
A.nd  yet  it  would  seem  a  vast  undertaking  for  me  and  for  her, 
at  that  period  of  our  advancing  age  and  infirmities — should 
it  ever  occur. 

1.  Unite  formidable  in  prospect,  less  probably  in  experi- 
ence. At  least,  if  it  were  perilous  for  you,  our  Americana 
would  care  little  or  nothing  for  it,  except  to  embrace  it  with 
avidity,  and  rejoice  in  the  opportunity,  with  no  hesitation  or 
tardiness. 

2.  But  I  should  wish  to  go  through  your  land,  and  over 
your  mountains,  to  see  the  mouth  of  your  Ohio,  and  your  Mis- 
sissippi, as  well  as  your  other  rivers.  Would  you  go  with 
me,  Dr.  Cox,  if  I  come,  and  be  my  cmnpagnon  du  voyage  in 
k  merica  ? 

1.  Well,  doctor,  I  think  I  will  —  certainly  it  would  be  a 
rery  pleasant  journey  and  a  tempting  opportunity.  But  let 
us  hear  your  plan  moi'e  particularly,  even  if  theory  be  the 
whole  of  it. 

2.  Your  country,  as  I  was  saying,  is  quite  a  topic  with  us, 
in  this  present  emeute  about  the  voluntary  principle. 

1.  I  am  glad  that  something  occurs  to  make  you  think  of 
us;  and  yet  it  seems  that,  in  all  Europe,  among  statesmen 
and  philosophers,  but  es])eeially  among  theologians  and  ec- 
clesiastics, you  ought  to  think,  as  Avell  as  learn  and  know, 
more  about  the  facts  of  our  wondrous  history,  the  promise  of 
our  grand  and  our  momentous  future,  the  problems  we  are 
solving,  our  enterprise,  our  commerce,  our  science,  our  political 
economy,  our  growth,  and  our  achievements,  and  pre-emi- 
nently all  that  God  intends  to  do  with  us,  for  us,  and  by  us, 
according  to  his  own  revealed  counsel  and  eternal  plan,  in 
relation  to  other  nations. 

2.  I  quite  agree  with  you.  So,  arrived  in  New  York,  1 
should  look  about  me,  and  see  with  my  own  eyes  the  won- 
ders of  the  New  World.  It  seems  there  would  be  quite  a 
new  atmosphere  in  that  new  world,  certainly  a  glare  of  nov- 


HIS    I'LAN    TO    MEASURE    US.  55 

elty  on  all  the  scenery  ;  your  architecture,  your  manners,  your 
habits,  your  costumes,  your  display,  your  intensity  of  action, 
all  would  seem  strange  at  first.  But  soon  I  should  explore 
you,  as  I  said  ;  gauge  tlie  dimensions  of  your  ecclesiastical 
statistics  and  your  means  of  Christian  education;  ascertain, 
for  myself,  the  ratio  of  your  accommodations,  your  sittings  in 
churches,  as  compared  with  your  whole  population  ;  know 
all  about  your  colleges  and  universities,  your  standard  of 
scholarship,  yonr  modes  of  teaching,  and  all  the  economy  of 
your  sysloni  lor  sacred  and  secular  learning — what  it  is  I  and 
see  the  workings  of  the  voluntary  principle,  in  its  own  great 
sphere,  in  the  national  laboratory  of  its  proper  home,  as  test- 
ed by  its  results,  its  fruits. 

1.  I  was  lately  giving  the  results  in  part,  and  I  now  assert 
to  you,  as  what  I  can  prove  and  do  know,  that  the  ratio  of 
our  accommodations  in  the  city  of  New  York,  all  places  of 
worship  included,  as  compared  with  the  entire  population,  is 
higher  and  better  than  yours,  in  either  chief  city  of  Scotland. 
Yes,  my  honored  friend  ;  neither  Glasgow,  nor  Edinburgh, 
in  their  houses  of  worship,  could  accommodate  so  large  a  pro- 
portion of  its  inhabitants,  by  either  the  voluntary  or  the  in- 
voluntary principle,  or  both  united,  as  the  city  of  New  York. 
And  this  is  a  fair  sample  and  criterion  of  other  cities  com- 
pared, on  your  and  on  our  side  of  the  ocean,  at  least  for  the 
most  part,  and  so  for  the  general  rule. 

2.  So  I  have  heard,  and  astonishing  as  to  me  it  seems,  I 
have  no  reason  to  gainsay  the  statement.  The  people  could 
do  wonders,  if  they  were  all  as  good  as  they  are  powerful. 
But  I  would  put  facts  and  observations,  and  these  alone,  in 
my  notes ;  and  then  I  should  next  go  away  to  Boston,  some- 
where in  the  East,  I  think.  There  I  would  enact  the  same 
exploration,  and  see  about  that  old  university  in  the  vicin- 
age that  has  gone  away  from  the  principles  of  its  founders 
— under  the  voluntary  principle,  or  the  innovations  of  your 
American  Dernocracy,  by  a  sad  deviation,  as  I  hear !  How 
is  that  ? 


50  VOYAGE    TO    KENTUCKY. 

1.  Bad  enough,  1  think.  It  reminds  me  of  some  of  your 
European  examples,  where  lapses  of  the  sort  have  been  de- 
fended by  the  power  of  establishments  around  them.  But 
proceed. 

2.  AVell,  having  explored  these  two  great  cities,  in  my 
next  move  I  should  go  straight  to  Kentucky. 

1.  You  would  ?  There  must  be  some  mistake,  doctor. 
The  distance  is  too  great  from  Boston.  It  could  not  be 
your  next  terminus — and  no  omnibus  or  minibus  runs  that 
way  : 

2.  Oh  I  distance,  with  the  modern  means  of  travel,  is  of 
little  or  no  account. 

1.  Still,  you  would  have  to  encounter  en  route  the  inter- 
mediate cities  and  states. 

2.  What  need  I  care  for  all  the  intermediate  states  ?  It 
is  my  beau  ideal  that  I  am  telling  you. 

1.  True.  But  you  could  scarce  get  from  Boston  to  Ken- 
tucky, even  by  an  air  line,  without  passing  through  Hhode 
Island,  Connecticut,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
Virginia,  and  Ohio.  And  as  the  people  of  these  states  are 
intelligent  enough  to  read  your  works,  to  appreciate  your 
fame,  and  to  desire  a  glimpse,  at  least,  of  your  person,  they 
would  be  apt  to  find  means  of  detaining  you  at  several  places 
on  the  way,  and  for  some  weeks,  I  think,  if  not  of  hearing 
Dr.  Chalmers  in  the  pulpit,  on  more  than  one  or  five  occa- 
sions, before  he  reached  Kentucky,  about  one  thousand  miles 
from  Boston  Your  bcaii  ideal,  my  dear  doctor,  may  be  a 
very  fine  one,  and  quite  worthy  of  its  projector ;  but,  as  you 
could  not  ride  it  there,  any  more  than  a  witch  could  ride  a 
broomstick  or  a  philosopher  a  streak  of  lightning,  I  must  sur- 
mise some  breach  in  the  fabric  of  your  ideal  plan,  which  pos- 
sibly ought  now  to  be  rectified.  You  would  next  go  from 
Boston  to  Kentucky  ? 

2.  Yes,  to  that  old  and  venerable  university  there,  you 
know — 


THAT    la,    TO    NEW    HAVEN.  57 

1.  "Why,  my  dear  sir,  they  have  nothing  old  there.  Their 
state  itself  is  young,  recent,  modern. 

2.  And — was  it  not  in  Kentucky  that  Dwight  lived  ? 

1.  Excellent,  doctor  !  You  mean  Connecticut,  in  New  En- 
gland, bordering  on  Massachusetts  ;  and  the  old  university 
is  none  other  than  venerable  Yale,  over  which  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Dwight  presided  with  such  celebrity,  and  for  so  many  years. 
He  died  in  February,  1817. 

2.  Ay,  so  it  is.  I  never  can  recollect  yovir  new-fangled, 
outlandish  Indian  names.  I  mean  Connecticut  then,  and  not 
Kentucky.     But  to  me  they  seem  much  alike,  after  all. 

1.  Well,  dear  sir,  why  do  you  not  learn,  at  least  in  general 
outline,  more  of  our  geography  ?  What  would  your  critical 
acrimony  say  to  us,  were  we,  on  your  soil,  to  make  similar 
mistakes  about  your  geography  ? 

2.  That  were  hard  to  say.  But  this  yovi  deserve — you 
Americans  know  more  of  our  geography,  our  history,  and  our 
literature,  than  we  of  yours  ;  whatever  the  cause  be. 

1.  Many  causes,  I  grant  you,  may  combine.  But  one  is 
this — we  pay  more  attention  to  yoiu's  than  you  to  ours. 

2.  It  is  true — so  I  drop  my  bcmc  ideal  for  the  present. 
Kentucky  is  a  slave  state,  I  think  ? 

1.  It  is;  and  slavery  seems  always  one  of  your  favorite 
topics  about  America.  Some  British  gentlemen  and  ladies 
seem  to  think  and  speak  to  us  almost  of  nothing  else.  Hence, 
as  the  original  sin  of  it  is  your  own  ;  as  we  have  the  conse- 
quences and  the  actual  results  of  it ;  as  talking  against  us 
never  helps  the  matter,  nor  gives  us  any  true  or  useful  in- 
formation ;  were  it  not  wiser  in  you  if  slavery  were  less  a 
topic  ?  Every  American  in  England — so  shamefully  annoy- 
ed— gets  sick  and  disgusted  with  it. 

2.  So  I  think.  With  many  it  is  the  theme  interminable. 
They  are  monomaniacs  about  it.  In  it  alone  is  all  they  know 
or  care  about  ethics,  politics,  jurisprudence,  or  religion.  I 
am  all  awry  with  them  myself,  because  I  can  not  get  up  be- 

C  2 


58  BAD    MANNERS    UF   TIIK    ENGLISH. 

hind  them  and  see  their  zeal  fur  (he  Lord;  wliile  they  drive 
like  Jehu,  but  without  his  commission,  iu  their  work  of  re- 
form ;  and  also  because,  on  one  occasion,  I  proposed  a  plan 
of  gradual  melioration  and  improvement  for  the  colored  peo- 
ple ;  the  only  one  that  I  could  judge  neither  Utopian,  nor  un- 
scriptural,  nor  impracticable  in  the  case,  they  were  all  ali- 
enated, if  not  positively  inimical. 

1.  I  am  glad  to  hear  such  sound  sense  from  Dr.  Chalmers. 
Like  most  others  who  visit  you,  I  have  no  slaves  ;  not  one  of 
my  personal  or  pastoral  relations  owns  one,  so  far  as  I  know 
and  believe  ;  the  Empire  State,  where  I  live,  is  a  free  state, 
and  so  are  a  majority  of  the  others  ;  nor  love  I  the  system  at 
all,  nor  cease  to  pray  for  its  discontinuance,  with  all  other 
sorts,  and  degrees,  and  modes  of  oppression,  in  all  the  world ; 
but  I  am  nauseated  with  the  arrogant  ill  manners  of  the  En- 
glish, and  their  obstreperousness  of  assault,  on  all  occasions, 
and  at  all  hazards,  indisci'iminate  and  vociferating,  about 
slavery.  Some  of  them  seem  only  to  know  of  America,  that 
it  is  a  great  place,  far  over  the  ocean,  with  slavery  there — 
and  besides  that,  the  cataract  of  Niagara  I  I  was  rudely  as- 
sailed lately  in  Exeter  Hall,  at  a  missionary  meeting,  after  I 
had  spoken  there,  by  importunate  request,  on  the  mode  of  con- 
ductmg  missions  in  America.  A  perfect  stranger  to  me,  after 
two  or  three  others  had  followed,  arose,  with  a  loud  voice, 
and  began  to  pour  ominous  eulogy  on  my  address — with  just 
one  exception,  one  great  fault,  he  said  ;  and  this  not  what  was 
in  it,  but  wholly  what  was  not  in  it — no  light  on  the  subject 
of  slavery  I  He  then  proceeded — and  when  he  sat  down,  I 
claimed  the  right  to  answer  him,  and  I  did  answer  him.  I 
am  commonly  roused  a  little  on  such  occasions. 

2.  Just  like  them,  and  just  like  him  !     I  know  the  man,* 
and  can  comprehend  it  all.     He  remarkably  pleased  himself! 

1.  I  heard  afterward,  whether  by  way  of  apology  or  not,  I 
can  not  say,  that  he  was  put  up  to  it  by  some  near  him,  who 
*  .\s  I  have  no  pnrsonal  frelings,  I  withhold  his  name.     S.  H.  C. 


AN    OLU    SKKMON    WAS    IHH    SI'EKCH.  59 

lieard  liim  preach  oii  the  subject  a  few  days  before  ;  and  so, 
complying,  he  re-euacted  his  memoriter  sermon  on  that  occa- 
sion, made  me  his  target,  and,  leveled  all  that  he  could  bring 
to  bear  at  me,  an  entire  stranger,  who  had  landed  only  a  day 
or  so  previous,  and  thus  I  had  to  take  from  his  batteries  a 
raking  fire  on  that  topic,  before  a  London  audience  of  about 
three  or  four  thousand  persons — so  gratifying  to  his  own  feel- 
ings, his  national  vanity,  and  his  own  pragmatical  arrogance. 
But  I  had  rather  despise  than  speak  of  the  abomination.  It 
is  not  a  rare  instance,  not  the  exception  to  the  rule,  but  the 
impudent  character,  the  good-for-nothing  habit*  of  the  En- 

*  At  the  meetings  of  the  Evangehcal  AUiance  in  London,  August, 
1,846,  wc  Americans  were  very  batUy  and  very  injuriously  treated  on 
the  topic  of  slavery — as  if  every  one  of  near  a  hundred  of  us,  cleric 
and  laio,  and  from  all  parts  of  the  Union,  but  chiefly,  or  almost  all, 
from  the  free  states,  were  himself  the  impersonation,  the  jmncipium 
ctfons,  of  all  the  evils  and  of  ail  the  crimes  in  any  way  connected  with 
it,  by  reality  or  imagination.  They  first  invited  the  whole  world  of 
Christendom  to  be  there,  for  the  holy  and  the  ecumenical  jubilation, 
and  then,  just  before  we  Americans  arrived,  their  hospitality,  in  its 
bowels  of  mercies  and  in  its  catholic  impartiality,  took  a  sudden  cachexy 
against  the  possibility  of  any  Americin  being  admitted  who  might 
possibly  have  some  relative  connection  with  slavery.  They  hence 
insulted  us  with  an  ex  post  facto  rider  on  the  bill,  with  a  special  quar- 
antine regulation,  or  rather  impeachment,  or  exclusion,  or  probation, 
as  the  case  might  require.  Some  excellent  brethren  refused  to  join 
the  Alliance  at  all,  and  returned  without  it  on  that  account,  righteous- 
ly indignant.  Some  were  pertinaciously  excluded  to  the  last — one, 
especially,  from  a  slave  state,  an  excellent  brother,  whom  I  well 
knew,  and  whose  claims  I  advocated  with  constancy  and  a  good 
conscience,  and  so  did  others  ;  all  in  vain  !  !  He  sustained  in 
law  the  relation,  or  his  wife  did,  of  master  or  mistress,  to  their 
house  servants,  six  or  seven  in  all.  And  he  more  eminently  sus- 
tained the  character  of  kind,  beneficent,  and  even  affectionate  con- 
sideration of  them  and  theirs.  Thus,  while  engaged  in  the  delibera- 
tions of  the  Alliance,  heart  and  soul,  having  traveled  three  or  four 
thousands  of  miles  at  our  own  expenses  to  attend  it,  as  freely  and 
equally  invited,  they,  many  of  those  excellent  Englishmen,  insisted 
on  some  appropriate  tests,  of  their  own  devising,  in  the  American 


60  CHURCH    ANU    8TATE HIS    THEORY. 

glish  ;  we  could  well  retaliate  in  either  or  both  countries  on 
clue  occasions  oflbring,  were  we  so  destitute  of  wisdom  and 
good  manners  ;  but  enough  of  this.  There  are  more  profit- 
able subjects,  especially  for  our  present  conference. 

2.  I  think  the  same.  Let  us  talk  of  the  expediency  of  estab- 
lishments as,  on  the  whole,  the  best  ecclesiastical  economy  as 
related  to  the  state.  Mind — we  sufTcr  not  Caesar  to  govern  us. 
Our  government  is  our  own,  under  Christ.  We  preserve  those 
three  normal  qualities  of  the  Church  intact,  apostoUcity, 
catholicity,  and  autonomy.  Christ  is  our  HEAD,  not  Cajsar. 
But  in  the  worldly  circle  of  Cajsar's  jurisdiction,  we  radiate 
an  mfluence  highly  and  incomparably  useful  to  Caesar,  as 
conservative  of  public  order  and  rational  liberty,  and  in  this 
way  our  function  is  beneficent  and  incomparable,  making 
men  good  subjects  of  Caesar,  because  they  are  true  disciples  of 
Christ.  For  this,  Caesar,  conscious  of  the  good  service  render- 
ed him,  and  feeling  also  how  indispensable  it  is  to  his  throne, 
is  admitted  to  show  at  once  his  gratitude  and  his  justice,  by 
Branch,  to  exclude  slaveholders  !  Against  this,  without  all  concert, 
all  the  Americans  rose  and  protested,  nno  ore,  una  sponte ;  with  one 
exception  only,  and  hardly  that !  But  all  in  vain.  They  knew  more, 
and  better  about  America,  than  all  the  Americans  !  Their  holy  and 
hardy  arrogance  rejected  and  overruled  all  our  remonstrances,  and — 
just  as  we  faithfully  told  them,  with  tears  in  our  eyes — at  last,  and 
as  it  is  badly  at  this  day,  they  crippled  and  killed  the  Alliance  in  this 
country  ! !  !  The  Rev.  Dr.  Baird  lately  told  them,  nobly  and  lumin- 
ously, the  truth  about  it,  and  I  cordially  re-echo  and  endorse  his  mas- 
terly perfomiance.  I  am  myself  descended  from  the  venerated  grand- 
sire  of  my  father,  whose  name  I  bear,  old  S.\muel  Hanson,  of  Dover, 
Kent  county,  Delaware,  who  set  all  his  .slaves  free  spontaneously ; 
and  since  then  no  one  of  his  descendants,  known  to  me,  ever  owned 
a  slave — except  when  I  bought  a  woman  and  eight  children  with 
money  contributed  and  collected  by  myself,  and  set  them  free,  accord- 
ing to  my  plan,  immediately.  I  have  never  loved  it — any  more  than 
I  love  the  way  of  the  English,  fanatical,  and  offensive,  and  short-sight- 
ed, in  dealing  with  it.  They  have  only  disgusted  this  nation  with 
their  manners,  and  done  evil,  and  not  good,  to  the  cause — precisely  as 
we  knew,  and  as  we  vainlv  warned  them  more  than  thrici^ ! 


WATKULUO    HALL    AND    CIIALMEK.S.  Gl 

assisting  in  the  support  of  the  organization,  which  to  him  is 
found  so  serviceable,  so  indispensable.  Here  are  two  grand 
interests  at  once  distinct  and  united,  mutually  helpful  and 
beneficent ;  each  stronger,  and  better,  and  more  permanent, 
because  of  the  other.  This  is  what  we  mean  by  establish- 
ment ;  this  our  Christian  expediency  ;  this  is  not,  indeed, 
sanctioned  expressly  in  Scripture,  neither  is  it  forbidden  ;  nay, 
many  things  seem  to  favor  it.  It  coincides,  at  least  indirect- 
ly, with  all  that  is  there.     Its  utility  is  founded  in  experience. 

1.  Our  experience  is  very  contradictory  to  yours,  though  of 
yours  the  accounts  greatly  vary.  Many  of  your  good  and  true 
ministers  of  the  Gospe],  you  know,  doctor,  differ  from  you  toto 
ccdo  in  your  estimate  of  establishments.  They  think  them 
corruptive,  embarrassing,  and  bad  in  the  main.  I  never  heard 
in  America  such  tirades  of  crimination  and  severity  against 
them  as  in  Scotland  here,  and  that  by  clever  and  responsible 
men,  official  and  non-official. 

2.  You  would  be  likely  to  hear  all  that,  in  concentrated 
volume,  among  the  dissenter.s  just  now,  as  several  recent  oc- 
currences have  exasperated  the  controversy  to  an  alarming 
degree.  We  are  all,  unhappily,  belligerent,  and  armed  on 
one  side  or  the  other. 

1 .  Yes  ;  I  saw  it  all  the  other  day  at  the  public  breakfast 
in  Waterloo  Hall,  and  greatly  regretted  the  excesses  I  wit- 
nessed there.  But  I  wish  you,  dear  sir,  to  understand  that 
I  went  there  almost  passively,  and  Avas  both  qualified  in  my 
words  on  the  occasion,  and  told  them,  also,  that,  as  a  stran- 
ger, I  thought  it  not  decent  or  proper  for  me  to  intermeddle 
in  their  local  policy  or  contentions  ;  and  particularly  assured 
them  of  my  regret  and  grief  to  hear  such  language  in  con- 
nection with  the  name  of  Chalmers. 

2.  Oh  I  I  am  quite  the  theme  of  their  severities  and  their 
denunciations  ;  but  I  will  hope  to  be  humble  under  the  co- 
pious honors  with  which  they  load  me.  Now  what  detri- 
ment to  Church  or  State  in  America,  if  both   were  united 


62  PRELACY    AND    MONARCHY. 

there,  fur  their  mutual  advantage,  on  the  principles  I  have 
mentioned  ? 

1.  As  a  fact,  doctor,  I  am  happy  to  aver  that  the  dream 
of  snch  a  consummation,  in  the  United  States,  is  utterly  for- 
lorn and  impracticable.  The  common  sense  of  our  citizens 
of  all  parties,  both  political  and  religious,  and  their  experi- 
ence too,  render  it  impossible.  Even  churchmen,  that  are 
"  fond  of  povi'cr,"  form  no  exception  ;  at  least  they  always 
declare  against  establishments ;  and  well  they  may,  since, 
were  one  doniiuaut  in  America,  the  majority  must  rule  ;  and, 
whatever  other  denomination  might  be  preferred,  themselves 
must  be  dissenters.  The  Church  of  England  is  not  the 
Church  of  America,  and  never  will  be  I  They  are  not  pop- 
ular ;  not  german  or  homogeneous  to  our  republican  institu- 
tions. They  are  eminently  aristocratic  and  royal  in  their 
predilections  and  their  tendencies.  No  bishop,  no  king,  said 
that  apostate  King  of  Scotland,  when  he  became  also  the 
English  king,  James  ;  and  we  may  say,  with  Whitgift,  in 
kindred  response,  No  king,  no  bisho]}.  Prelacy  and  mon- 
archy are  in  good  accord  and  natural  league,  as  all  the  world 
knows,  and  so  are  presbytery  and  popular  government.  Kings 
and  bishops,  and  their  divine  rights,  are  all  factitious  and  tra- 
ditionary creations.  In  our  Revolutionary  agony,  the  Pres- 
byterians vvere  cordially,  and  naturally,  and  quite  incompar- 
ably, the  friends  of  Washington,  liberty,  and  independence. 
They  acted,  prayed,  and  stood,  with  distinguished  unanimity 
and  cordial  decision,  for  the  vernacular  cause — as,  indeed, 
their  principles  impelled  them.  But  many  a  statesman 
among  us  is  so  little  of  a  philosopher,  or  so  bad  a  historian, 
as  not  to  see  the  connection  between  their  principles  and 
their  actions  ;  and  some  understand  neither  the  one  nor  the 
other.  Your  own  learned  and  heroic,  as  well  as  honorable 
and  eminent  "VVitherspgon,  of  happy  memory — yours  by  na- 
tivity, was  one  of  our  exemplary  patriarchs — ours  by  adop- 
tion.     He  was  one  of  the  renowned  and  now  time-honored 


THE    ENGLl.SH    CIIUKC'II.  63 

patriots,  who  shall  never  cease  to  figure  with  praise  iu  his- 
tory as  the  signers  of  our  immortal  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence ;  a  distinguished  and  useful  member  of  Congress  ; 
a  most  influential  writer  ;  and  every  way  a  leader,  whose  ex- 
ample was  revered  and  followed  by  all  the  true-hearted  lov- 
ers of  liberty  in  the  country. 

2.  Well,  personally,  could  you  see  much  objection  to  my 
views  on  the  subject  of  establishments  ?  Caesar  feeds  us  ; 
we  benefit  him  ;  we  earn  more  than  he  pays  us ;  we  could 
do  without,  him  quite  as  well,  on  the  whole,  or  better,  pos- 
sibly, than  he  without  us  ;  and  we  govern  ourselves — deny- 
ing him  all  headship  and  government  in  the  Church. 

1.  Your  theory  strikes  me  as  exceptionable  and  perilous, 
and  the  practice  as  worse  than  the  theory.  If  Cajsar  feeds, 
he  will  rule  you,  indirectly,  if  not  directly,  as  surely  as  that 
the  rich  rulcth  over  the  poor,  and  the  borrower  is  servant 
to  tlie  lender,  Prov.  22  :  7.  You  become  his  abjects,  as  well 
as  his  subjects.  Look  South  :  the  British  Cajsar  is  their  ec- 
clesiastical HEAD,  male  or  female — their  governor  and  mas- 
ter. The  government  of  the  Church  of  England  is  complete- 
ly secularized.  It  is  identified  quite  with  the  British  Par- 
liament,* the  British  ministry,  and  the  British  monarchy. 
Their  spiritual  convocation  exists  functionless,  and  only  in 
abeyance  of  law.  Their  autonomy  is  gone  ;  and  as  for  their 
catholicity,  they  would  not,  at  this  moment,  in  their  iron- 
bound  organization,  brook  even  Dr.  Chalmers,  or  Merle  d'Au- 
bigne,  or  any  other  Presbyterian,  nor  even  the  Apostle  Paul, 
I  opine,  in  one  of  their  pulpits.  And  what  becomes  of  their 
apostolicity — is  it  genuine  ?  entire  ?  scriptural  ?  real  ?  No  ! 
When  Henry  the  Eighth  deposed  the  pope,  and  abominably 
usurped  his  place  in  England,  as  HEAD  of  the  Church  there 
himself,  he  committed  an  anomalous  and  monstrous  scandal, 
which  lasts  there  to  this  day,  incorrigible  ;  and  we  must  al- 
ways respect  the  example,  and  sympathize  with  the  scruple, 
*  With  Romanists,  heretics,  infidels,  and  Quakers  in  it — if  not  .Tews  .' 


64  TKMl'ERANCE MISSIONS. 

of  the  leanipd  and  honest  friend  of  Erasmus,  Sir  Thomas 
More,  to  whom  that  anomaly  was  so  astounding  and  so  im- 
pious, that,  papist  as  he  was  by  education,  and  patriot  on 
principle,  and  unfeignedly  brave,  rather  than  acknowledge 
Henry,  his  sovereign,  a  layman,  a  persecutor,  a  pedant,  and 
a  royal  brute — though  God  overruled,  as  well  as  used,  his 
agency  for  his  own  most  beneficent  purposes,  as  Head  of  the 
Church,  he  nobly  yielded  his  own  head,  by  order  of  the  des- 
potic and  persecuting  murderer,  on  Tower  Hill.  And  see 
your  own  General  Assembly  of  Scotland,  opened  first  by  the 
Moderator,  in  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  then 
by  the  Royal  Commissioner,  seated  over  and  behind  him, 
throned  there  in  state,  with  two  liveried  pages,  opening  the 
Assembly  with  Caesar's  sublime  sanction,  and  in  the  name  of 
"  the  monarch  of  these  realms  !"  This,  my  dear  doctor,  or 
the  like  of  it,  would  never  do  in  America  ;  and  I  hope  to  see 
the  time  when,  in  Europe,  or  Great  Britain,  it  will  owe  its 
advocacy  no  more  to  the  example  and  the  eloquence  of  Chal- 
mers I     America  disclaims  it. 

2.  Well,  you  are  a  gallant  people,  and  in  all  good  things 
we  are  willing  you  should  instruct  the  world.  In  two  re- 
spects, you  are,  at  present,  exciting  great  attention  ;  to  say 
nothing  of  the  stability  and  the  solidity  evinced  of  your  fab- 
ric of  government,  as  against  the  fears  and  the  prognosis  of 
all  our  European  croakers.  You  deserve  applause  for  your 
recent  achievements  in  the  field  of  foreign  missions,  and  your 
more  recent  reformation  in  respect  to  temperance.  There  is 
great  moral  grandeur  in  all  this. 

1.  I  am  happy  that  you  seem  to  appreciate  us  there,  espe- 
cially in  the  matter  of  temperance.  In  Scotland,  I  think, 
with  all  your  excellences  and  your  eminences,  which  we  all 
acknowledge  and  admire,  you  have  drinking  habits,  aijd 
drinking  faults,  that  call  loudly  for  reform — verj'  loudly,  my 
dear  sir  I 

2.  Too  true  I  but  it  is  still  a  question  with  the  Scots  wheth- 


ABSTINENCE THE    PRINCIPLE.  65 

er  they  will,  or  can,  or  should,  follow  you  in  your  ultraism 
of  the  principle  of  total  abstinence. 

1.  And  how  many  more  thousands  of  your  sons — and  shall 
I  say,  your  daughters,  arc  to  be  insidiously  nuirdered  by  alco- 
hol, in  body  and  in  soul,  for  time  and  for  eternity,  murdered 
by  fashionable  compliance,  on  the  principle  of"  prudent  use  ;" 
th"e  only  initiating  principle  on  which  drunkards  are  manu- 
factured, or  can  ordinarily  be  made  ;  before  you  Scots,  in  your 
Baconian  philosophy  and  your  Presbyterian  wisdom,  can  be 
persuaded  to  adopt,  to  your  own  infinite  advantage,  the  only 
principle  in  the  world  that  makes  your  safety  certain,  that  ren- 
ders your  ruin  impossible  1     Yes,  dear  sir,  the  only  principle. 

2.  It  is  unquestionably  a  grand  and  a  unique  reformation 
that  has  begun  among  you,  and  certainly  the  world  needs  it. 
Great  Britain  needs  it,  and  especially  North  Britain.  We 
must  also  own  that  America  is  here  our  leader  and  our  teach- 
er ;  young  as  she  is,  she  has  the  honor  to  be  the  mother  coun- 
try of  the  Temperance  Reformation.  And  still,  we  fear,  the 
Scots  cair  hardly  brook  the  principle  of  total  abstinence. 

1.  Perhaps  not — as  long  as  the  learned  clergy,  with  Chal- 
mers at  their  head,  neither  brook  it  themselves,  nor  recom- 
mend it  to  others,  nor  join  the  reformation  in  its  initial  crisis. 
It  seems  to  me  a  little  like  Erasmus  approving  of  Luther ; 
but  never  joining  the  Reformation,  and  at  lasif  dying  a  papist  I 
The  curse  of  Meroz  was  for  a  similar  delinquency,  a  negative 
ofiense  ;  they  came  not.  Drunkenness  at  home  is,  at  least 
relatively,  a  greater  evil  than  slavery  abroad.  Judges  6  :  23. 
Matt.  7  :  3-5.  HF^  It  is  slavery  and  vile  subjection  to  the 
devil.     Yes,  the  worst  kind  of  slavery  ! 

2.  They  object,  however,  to  your  sweeping  principle  o{  to- 
tal abstinence,  as  extravagant,  unnecessary,  and,  some  think, 
adverse  to  the  wisdom  of  the  Scriptures.  I  do  not  give  this, 
however,  as  my  opinion  ;  and  yet  I  have  not  adopted  the  prin- 
ciple. Let  the  experiment  be  fully  tried,  by  its  genuine  and 
its  permanent  fruits. 


66  TIIK    CAUSE    VINDICATED. 

1 .  Ill  the  principle  I  see  no  fanaticism,  properly  no  extrav- 
agance. As  a  beverage,  when  in  health,  we  drink  nothing 
that  can  intoxicate  ;  nothing  lor  which  we  have  no  need  ; 
nothing  that  may  injure,  but  can  not  benefit  us  ;  nothing  for 
the  sake  of  the  mere  bibacious  and  guzzling  pleasure  ;  nothing 
for  Bacchanalian  honor,  or  the  godless  laws  of  the  fashionable 
symposium  ;  nothing  to  disturb  the  sobrieties  of  nature,  or 
precipitate  the  motions  of  life's  pendulum  within  our  bosoms, 
or  induce  the  morbid  necessities  of  the  initiated  drinker.  And 
is  it  not  lawful,  innocent,  salubrious,  as  well  as  safe,  to  ab- 
stain ?  On  the  other  hand,  if  I  am  weak,  or  sick,  and  act- 
ually need  it,  I  can  use  it,  outwardly  or  inwardly,  as  a  med- 
icament ;  just  as  I  would  use  any  other  clement  of  pharma- 
cy, any  other  poison,  as  arsenic,  bella  donna,  or  prussic  acid, 
or  even  execrable  tobacco,  as  a  means  of  cure.  And  here,  if 
drunkenness  is  a  most  insidious  and  destructive  evil ;  if  souls 
and  bodies,  and  families,  and  churches  and  nations,  the  young 
and  the  old,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  are  more  deceived  and  de- 
stroyed by  it,  incomparably  more,  than  by  the  Asiatic  chol- 
era, that  scares  the  world  so  terribly,  and  yet  that  can  not 
harm  the  soul  at  all ;  and  if  the  remedy  of  our  principle  is 
both  therapeutic  and  prophylactic,  as  well  as  cheap,  easy, 
universal,  infallible,  and  without  all  pretense,  or  fallacy,  or 
deceit ;  and  if  those  who  have  tried  it,  delight  in  it,  recom- 
mend it,  and  abhor  the  deleterious  alternative  that  foregoes 
the  principle,  I  leave  it  to  such  a  judge  as  Dr.  Chalmers, 
whether  you  ought  not  to  become  the  eldest-daughter  coun- 
try, if  we  are  the  mother  country,  in  so  great,  and  so  excel- 
lent, and  so  necessary  a  reformation. 

2.  I  admire  the  stand  you  take,  and  am  not  quite  sure  that 
ours  is  the  right,  in  our  refusal  to  stand  with  you. 

1 .  Who  ought  to  take  a  stand,  if  not  the  ministers  of  God  ? 
and  in  a  cause  of  such  purely  moral,  spiritual,  and  practical, 
as  well  as  personal  nature  ?  We  should  find  and  follow  good 
examples ;  or,  like  the  blessed  Paul,  set,  and  let  others  find 
them  in  us.     Phil'  3  :  17-19. 


AMERICAN    MISSIONS.  67 

But,  doctor,  you  spoke  of  our  missions  abroad.  I  should 
like  to  hear  your  opinion  more  at  large. 

2.  You  shall  have  it  then,  in  terms  of  approbation,  and 
even  of  laudation,  unqualified.  I  have  perused  your  statistics 
and  your  reports,  and  read  your  public  documents,  on  the  great 
subject  of  Foreign  Missions,  with  attention,  and  for  years  ;  and 
I  may  say,  M'itli  increasing  advantage  and  pleasure.  The  ac- 
counts given  by  your  missionaries  themselves  are  quite  valu- 
able papers.  I  read  them  not  only  for  the  narratives  they 
contain,  and  the  facts  they  declare,  and  the  results  they  as- 
certain to  us  ;  but  for  the  theology,  and  the  pbilosophy,  and 
the  experimental  wisdom  included.  It  is  my  own  opinion 
that  your  missionaries  abroad  are  doing  a  great  and  a  good 
work  ;  that  they  are  an  honor  to  your  coimtry,  and  a  blessing 
to  mankind;  and  that,  for  address,  industry,  sagacity,  faith, 
and  practical  thrift,  they  have  no  equals.  At  least,  I  wish 
the  heathen  world  were  full  of  such  missionaries  and  their  aj)- 
propriate  fruits. 

1.  You  deserve,  my  dear  doctor,  our  grateful  recognition, 
for  your  liberal  and  magnanimous  appreciation  of  us  in  all 
our  best  aspects.  For  one,  I  thank,  esteem,  and  love  you  only 
the  more  for  it.  Bad  as  we  are,  we  have  some  salt  in  Amer- 
ica ;  not  only  Attic  salt,  but  the  better  salt  of  the  covenant. 
It  is  a  provocation  very  legitimate,  and  very  Christian  too, 
in  which  for  you  and  us  to  engage  together,  and  with  mutual 
or  common  profit,  if  its  object  be  to  love  and  to  good  icorks. 
There  are  magnific,  and  swaying,  and  religious  reasons  why 
England  and  America,  the  daughter  and  the  mother  country, 
should  always  maintain  a  good  and  an  honest  understanding 
together ;  should  foment  or  provoke  no  angry  or  illiberal  al- 
ienations ;  should  know  and  pursue  their  common  interests  ; 
should  respect  each  other  as  much  as  possible,  in  spite  of  the 
faults  respectively  of  both  ;  should  in  many  things  co-operate 
for  the  good  of  the  world  ;  and,  above  all,  should  so  think,  so 
speak,  and  so  act,  henceforth,  as  to  make  another  war  be- 


68  AMERICANS    GUESS,    NOT    SO    BADLY. 

tween  them,  a  thing  so  tremendous  in  idea,  and  so  abom- 
inated in  conduct,  as  to  be  hereafter  neither  tolerable  nor 
possible  I  Pax  inter  nos  divina  esto  perpetua,  custode 
Deo,  nationcs.  nomine  Chnsiiauas. 


Thus  our  conversation  mainly  proceeded,  sometimes  with 
intermissions  of  its  gravity  and  episodes  of  familiarity  and 
humor.  With  no  reference  to  his  own  broad  Scotch  intona- 
tions, he  would  rally  us  about  our  peculiarities.  Our  vernac- 
ular use  of  the  word  guess  quite  amused  him.  He  asked 
if  all  the  states  alike  used  it,  in  the  sense  of  suspect  or  think, 
and  with  familiar  frequency.  I  replied,  that  this  usage  was 
more  at  home  in  New  England,  as  Yankee  proper,  than  in 
the  other,  and  especially  the  Southern  States — though,  while 
at  the  South  they  say  recko?i,  they  generally  guess  only  ;  and 
while  at  the  North  or  Northeast,  they  say  guess,  they  gen- 
erally reckon  only  ;  using  the  multiplication  table  more  than 
others,  commonly  ciphering  in  their  head,  and  ascertaining 
results  with  the  certainty  of  figures,  "  that  can  not  lie ;" 
while  their  guesses  are  announced  often  with  almost  orac- 
ulous  infallibility.  Still,  our  proverbial  guessing  was  rather 
ridiculous  in  his  view ;  his  amiable  daughter,  however,  took 
our  part  in  this  arraignment. 

3.  Well,  pa,  might  not  this  proceed  from  modesty  ?  They 
are  conscious  of  their  own  liability  to  mistake,  and  hence 
they  would  not  assert  a  thing  absolutely  ;  but,  in  the  costume 
of  a  simple  and  modest  guess,  they  suggest  and  introduce  it 
to  our  thoughts.  We,  I  am  sure,  are  more  dogmatical,  "  you 
know."  AYe  always  assert  not  only,  but,  "  you  know,"  we 
tell  the  hearers  presumptuously  that  they  knotv  the  same, 
"  you  know."  In  this,  perhaps,  our  own  is  a  peculiarity  much 
more  objectionable,  as  really  arrogant  and  often  false.  Some- 
times, when  one  is  telling  us  marvels,  "  you  know,"  that  we 
never  heard  or  thought  before,  he  will  keep  interrupting  his 
own  thoughts  and  ours,  by  saying,  when  he  asserts  a  wonder, 


OUR    REAXJING     NOT    INFERIOR.  69 

"  you  know,"  though  tve  knoiv  properly  no  such  thing,  and 
possibly  he  may  not  know  it  either,  "  you  know  I" 

I  followed  suit,  by  remarking  that  the  dialects  of  ancient 
Greece  were  neither  so  variant,  nor  so  bad  as  those  of  the 
different  districts,  and  even  related  counties,  of  the  British 
isles  ;  and  that  for  general  correctness  and  homogeneousness 
too,  the  English  language  flourished  in  America,  among  the 
commonly-educated  classes,  with  quite  remarkable,  and  even 
with  increasing  uniformity,  throughout  the  whole  country  and 
all  the  states.  But  the  British  are  often  prejudiced,  in  this 
respect  more  innocently  than  in  some  others,  it  maybe,  against 
us.  So  Dr.  Johnson  was  set  against  the  Scotch — but  more, 
they  say,  against  the  intellectual  character  of  America,  es- 
pecially after*  the  Revolution  ;  of  whom  it  is  related  that 
once,  in  conversation  with  an  honored  and  excellent  Ameri- 
can, the  latter  spoke  of  purchasing,  as  desired,  a  quantity  of 
books,  w^hile  in  London,  to  stock  the  private  libraries  of  a 
few  of  his  friends  and  neighbors  at  home  ;  when  Johnson  in- 
terposed with  an  ill-natured  remark  about  the  low  state  of 
American  literature  and  cultivation,  as  if  any  thing  was  good 
enough  for  their  reading  and  improvement.  The  Americanf 
replied,  True,  indeed,  you  have  more  age  and  more  maturity 
than  my  countrymen  ;  but  neither  are  your  minds  at  all  su- 
perior to  ours,  nor  is  our  proficiency  as  low  as  you  commonly 
rate  us.  We  read  the  works  of  Addison,  Pope,  Young,  Mil- 
ton, Shakspeare.  The  Spectator,  the  Rambler,  Rasselas  es- 
pecially, are  great  favorites  Avith  our  readers.     And  it  is  be- 

*  He  died  shortly  after  the  peace,  December  13,  1784. 

+  Rev.  John  S.  Ewing,  D.D.  LL.D.  Provost  of  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  and  pastor  of  the  First  Presbyterian  church,  Philadel- 
phia ;  a  rich  and  a  ripe  scholar,  a  finished  gentleman,  and  one  of  whom 
that  surly  English  eater  of  beef-steaks,  and  testy  old  colossus  of  lit- 
erary erudition,  and  morose  defender  of  church  and  state  establish- 
ments, and  superstitious  propugnator  of  monarchy  ^and  every  thing 
English,  ought  in  all  decency  and  justice  to  have  been  more  consid- 
erate and  respectful. 


70  OL'K    KVlLri    AND    (»LK    DANGERS. 

cause  they  have  read  these  so  much,  that  they  need  and  ask 
for  more  of  the  same,  and  even  of  higher  character — if  Lon- 
don can  afibrd  them  to  us  !  The  doctor  uas  wonder-struck, 
and  quite  improved  in  his  huge  urbanity  and  his  estimate  of 
the  American  capabihties — especially  if  the  Rambler  and 
Rasselas  were  favorites  with  their  common  readers,  as  they 
were  certainly  with  himself  I 

To  some  of  the  questions  of  Chalmers,  about  the  stability 
of  American  society  and  our  republican  form  of  government, 
I  answered  as  far  as  honestly  I  could  in  their  general  vindi- 
cation. At  the  same  time,  I  owned  our  incidental  evils,  our 
dangers,  and  our  fears  —  sectional  jealousies;  sordid  ambi- 
tion ;  demagogism  ;  party  spirit ;  flattering  the  people  for 
their  votes  ;  the  silly  and  the  shameful  idolatry  of  militar)' 
chieftainship — rather  of  military  success  and  hero-worship, 
so  that  no  matter  who  he  is  in  other  respects,  if  he  is  a  con- 
spicuous general,  sees  actual  service,  and  gets  a  victory,  he 
meets  the  coUaudation  of  the  continent,  and  is  alw<iys  in  act- 
ual danger  of  being  made,  on  that  account  mainly,  if  not 
solely.  President  of  the  United  States.  There  are  also  the 
mischiefs  of  contempt  for  age  and  office  ;  boys  and  girls  an- 
ticipating maturity  of  life,  and  arrogating  more  than  all  its 
honors  in  their  upstart  and  impious  vanity  ;  others  leveling 
downward  ;  a  spirit  of  giddy  restlessness  in  some  places  ; 
slavery  and  its  affinities  ;  popery  and  its  corporation  of  false- 
hoods ;  residuary  intemperance;  Sabbath-breach  ;  infidelity  ; 
insubordination,  in  some  few  instances,  even  to  the  sacred- 
ness  of  law  ;  the  selfish  love  of  liberty,  or  that  against  order 
and  the  rights  of  others  ;  defective  education ;  papal  immi- 
gration and  imported  licentiousness  ;  false  equality  ;  predom- 
inating ignorance  in  particular  localities  ;  national  vanity  ; 
and,  above  all,  national  sins  of  every  kind  against  God ;  these 
and  such  as  these  might,  each  or  all  of  them,  be  commis- 
sioned to  work  our  punishment,  and  execute  his  wrath,  even 
in  our  national  dismemberment  and  ultimate  destruction. 


OUR    UEFICIENCIEH.  71 

In  reference  to  our 'system  of  education,  from  primary 
schools  to  the  ultimate  honors  of  Alma  Mater  and  the  Pro- 
fessional Gymnasium,  I  made  as  favorable  replies  as  in  con- 
science I  could,  to  his  searching,  and  yet  bland  and  pertinent 
interrogatories.  Our  system  as  peculiar,  as  properly  and  real- 
ly American,  I  endeavored  to  expound  and  vindicate — from 
the  nature  of  the  case  ;  from  the  extent  as  well  as  the  recen- 
cy of  our  country ;  from  our  sparse  and  industrious  popula- 
tion ;  from  the  wants  and  the  necessities  of  our  emigrating 
fathers;  from  their  noble  history  and  puritan  principles  ;  from 
the  late  multitudes  of  Europe's  poor  and  ignorant  population 
coming  among  us  by  uncounted  thousands ;  and  lirom  other 
and  incidental  causes  allied  to  these.  As  to  our  deficiencies, 
I  insisted  that,  as  a  boy  of  seven  years  old  could  not  compete 
so  well  at  school  with  one  thrice  seven,  so  we  ought  to  be 
credited,  too,  in  proportion  to  our  comparative  infancy,  for  the 
really  gigantic  achievements  and  attainments  we  have  made  ; 
that  some  of  our  acknowledged  and  characteristic  qualities 
as  earnest  and  original  thinkers,  and  as  inventors,  were  not 
deficiencies ;  that  some  of  their  own  specimens  were  less  a 
decHS  than  a  dcdccus  to  their  proud  and  aristocratic  educa- 
cation,  so  vaunted,  at  Oxford,  at  Cambridge,  or  even  at  their 
Athens  of  the  North  ;  that  many  of  their  University  gradu- 
ates were  merely  factitious  scholars,  who  "  eat  their  terms"  at 
college,  and  then,  by  the  aid  less  of  grammars  than  of  cram- 
mers, they  prepare  ad  litcram  for  the  examen  of  "  the  little 
go,"  and  also,  in  the  same  way,  of  "  the  great  go,"  each  of 
them,  or,  at  least,  one  here  and  there,  now  and  then,  liaud 
rari,  and  as  certain  also  of  their  own  j)oets  have  said, 
Proceeding  soon  a  graduated  dunce. 

Now,  if  some  of  our  graduates  are  stamped  at  the  mint  of 
the  University  B.A.  or  even  A.M.  or  possibly  D.P.  or  M.D. 
or  LL.D.  or,  horresco  refer  ens,  even  D.D.  rather  immaturely, 
one  here  and  there,  now  and  then,  glorying  in  the  degree  sin- 
cerely, and  taking  his  Diploma  by  faith — not  being  able,  ex- 
actly or  analytically,  to  translate  its  Latin  mysteries — yet 


72  UHALMEKS    AT    LA;?T    A    UlSi^KNTEU. 

such  things  occur  not  here  alone  I  7ioh  nobiscum  solum,  but, 
alas  !  they  are  to  be  found  in  all  Europe,  especially  where 
royal  prerogative  interferes,  for  some  favorites  by  onandamus, 
and  the  oraculous  degree-makers  respond,  in  all  their  loyal- 
ty, and  somebody  is  emblazed  by  fiat  of  the  king  I*  But,  all 
this  apart,  it  is  now  our  hope,  as  it  was  then  our  averment, 
that  the  tendency  of  things  among  us,  on  the  whole,  counter- 
working other  and  lamented  tendencies,  the  stronger  against 
the  weaker,  is  upward  as  well  as  onward  ;  elevation  as  well 
as  progress ;  raising  the  standard  of  education,  and  scholar- 
ship, and  universal  learning,  ab  ovo  usque  ad  tnahim.,  of  the 
whole  curriculum  and  the  total  entertainment. 

On  other  topics  I  think  it  not  necessary  to  dwell.  In  what 
is  here  written,  the  reader  is  probably  aware  that  I  profess  to 
give  the  substance  mainly,  without  the  form  or  the  order,  his- 
torical, of  our  conversation.  But  I  have  aimed  in  all  to  rep- 
resent the  truth,  and  especially  to  do  justice  to  the  high  and 
lucid  character  of  Chalmers.  In  quite  a  number  of  instances, 
I  have  used  very  nearly  his  language,  his  identical  words,  and 
in  all  have  shown  fairly,  I  trust,  his  real  sentiments.  On 
the  subject  of  establishments,  little  could  either  of  us  suspect 
what  occurred  about  ten  years  afterward  at  the  memorable 
disruption,  as  they  correctly  term  it — when  Chalmers  be- 
came de  facto  et  de  jure  a  dissenter  ;  leading  that  grand  and 
general  exodus  from  the  Established  Church  of  Scotland, 
which  is  now  so  exemplary  and  so  honorable  in  our  "American 
eyes,  and  in  the  eyes  of  all  the  world,  as  the  Free  Church 
OF  Scotland.  They  are  now,  we  trust,  yr^-e  indeed;  and 
what  is  this  but  a  confession  of  the  compromises  and  the  bond- 
age of  their  former  state,  as  well  as  that  yet  extant  of  the 
residuary  Church  there  ?     These — are  they  "  free  ?" 

It  was  in  July,  1846,  that,  on  my  second  visit  to  Scotland, 
I  again  enjoyed  the  pleasure  of  several  interviews  with  Chal- 
mers.    He  was  living  at  Morningside,  a  mile  or  two  from 

*  I  say  nothing  of  bribes  for  honors,  and  Almae  Matres  growing 

rich — BY  DEGREES. 


POLITICS PARTISAN    AND    MONETARY    SWAY.  73 

Edinburgh,  in  a  suburban  retreat  from  the  smoke,  and  the 
din,  and  the  dust  of  the  metropolis.  There,  on  one  occasion, 
I  breakfasted  with  him ;  on  another,  had  a  second  full  con- 
ference with  him  alone,  and  by  appointment,  in  his  study, 
and  afterward  a  preaching  service  with  him,  of  a  singular 
character,  in  Burk's  Close,  West  Port,  just  south  of  the  Castle 
of  Edinburgh.  Of  these  three  interviews,  selecting  some  in- 
teresting parts  of  each,  I  shall  attempt,  in  the  sequel,  some 
description — omitting  others,  as,  on  difl'erent  accounts,  less 
proper  to  my  pen  or  the  public  eye. 

Great  changes  had  occurred  in  the  interval  of  thirteen 
years.  No  longer  was  Chalmers  the  propugnator  of  estab- 
lishments on  either  side  of  the  T\veed.  Whatever  might  be 
his  philosophic  preference  or  his  general  theory,  he  was  Css- 
sar's  man  no  more.  Chalmers  was,  in  fact,  a  dissenter.  Caj- 
sar's  men  and  he  were  at  odds.  They  called  him  a  worship- 
er in  conventicles,  and  his  party  a  set  of  renegades  from  civil 
and  ecclesiastical  order.  The  Bishop  of  London  would  award 
him  no  more  favors  or  honors — like  the  composition  of  a 
Bridgewater,  with  the  convenient  quiddmn  honorariian  of  a 
thousand  sterling  for  his  exemplary  and  his  masterly  trouble 
and  performance.  He  Avas  now  in  combat  for  the  rights  and 
the  sites  of  new  church  edifices  ;  and  the  proud,  and  the  loy- 
al, and  the  inexorable  Dukes  of  Buccleugh  and  Sutherland, 
with  all  the  stipendiary  officials  of  the  queen,  and  all  the 
religionists  in  the  queendom,  whose  consciences  are  in  the 
keeping  of  royal  favor  and  the  public  purse,  were  illumined, 
and  converted,  and  confirmed  by  bishops  to  be  his  enemies. 

The  exchequer  of  England  is  a  powerful  casuist.  It  is  also 
an  oracle,  a  magnet,  and  an  enlightener  of  the  eyes.  Some 
men  can  plainly  see  their  duty  only  in  relation  to  it  ;  and  if 
wrong  by  coincidence,  it  requires  more  powerful  argument 
than  Chalmers  could  wield  to  convince  them  of  it.  Hence 
the  mighty  ferment,  the  collisions,  and  the  animosities,  and 
the   alienations   accruing  and   rampant   in   Scotland.     The 

D 


74  PRESBYTERIANS    IN    EARNEST. 

Scotch  have  neck  of  their  own,  and  a  vertebral  column 
which,  when  stiilened  to  a  special  perpendicular,  will  brook 
no  common  deflection  from  its  assumed,  and  commonly  its 
real  rectitude.  The  spirit  of  Knox  is  not  dead  in  the  nation 
— if  we  may  so  speak.  Hence  their  partisan  warfare  is  no 
child's  play.  They  scatter  the  rooks,  by  breaking  up  the 
rookeries  and  tearing  down  their  nesting-places.  There  are 
no  controvertists,  especially  in  a  matter  where  religion  is  con- 
cerned, or  its  apostolical  purity  and  polity,  against  prelacy 
and  the  Stuarts,  or  their  resultant  branches,  is  imphcated  ; 
none  so  stern,  so  tenacious,  so  impregnable  as  the  roused  and 
the  resolute  Presbyterians  of  Scotland.  And  well  they  may 
be — mindful  of  all  the  bloody  raids  and  infernal  persecutions 
which  the  treacherous  Charleses  and  the  persecuting  Jameses 
have  enacted  to  persuade  them,  vi  et  armis,  to  forego  the 
truth  oi  the  glorious  gos2)el  of  the  Messed  God,  and  the  ex- 
cellent order  that  it  inspires,  and  that  maintains  its  purity 
and  its  glory,  and  take  that  meretricious  system  to  which  the 
Stuarts  apostatized,  and  in  which,  with  terrible  consistency, 
Caesar  takes  the  precedence,  and  Christ  is  a  mere  appendage 
to  his  usurpations,  eclipsed  and  perverted  at  that,  and  prop- 
erly Head  no  more  of  his  own  Church — if  his,  in  propriety, 
it  may  still  be  called  and  continue  I  No  wonder  they  have 
an  ancestral  and  a  patriotic,  as  well  as  a  religious  horror  of 
the  prelatical  system,  of  all  Erastianism,  and  of  whatever 
they  conceive  inimical  to  the  true  interests  of  Scotland  and 
the  Church  of  God.  Hence  the  severity  of  their  present  par- 
tisanship. 

It  w^as  like  the  civil  war  of  the  roses,  the  red  and  the 
white  in  bloody  contest,  only  that  the  arena  was  more  con- 
tracted ;  words  were  used,  and  not  bullets,  and  the  contest  was 
ecclesiastical,  or  rather  ecclesiastico-political  alone.  Many  of 
his  friends  and  brethren  of  the  Free  Church  were  worshiping 
in  the  open  air,  sometimes  where  two  or  more  ways  met,  ex- 
posed to  all  the  stormy  perils  of  the  boreal  elements,  because 


DISRI'PTION    in^KE    AND    THERE.  75 

their  principles  had  wrought  their  secernment  from  their  for- 
mer places  of  worship,  and  because  the  great  lords  of  the  soil 
in  their  vicinities  denied  them  a  site  on  which  to  build  a 
house  for  the  glory  of  their  God,  and  the  celebration  of  his 
proper,  and  his  priiiiitive,  and  his  purer  worship,  according 
to  their  creed,  and  their  conscience,  and  their  Bible. 

Besides,  Presbyterianism  was  shaken  in  the  other  hemi- 
sphere— its  fabric,  not  its  principles  ;  and  like  their  national 
ecclesiastical  device,  the  burning  bush,  in  flcames  and  yet  un- 
scathed, because  the  God  of  Abraham,  and  Isaac,  and  Jacob 
is  there,  its  motto  was  every  where  vindicated — Nec  Con- 
SUMEBATUR  ;*  a  piece  of  eternal  asbestos  which  fire  can  illus- 
trate, but  not  destroy.  There  had  been  a  disruption,  also,  in 
America,  a  few  years  older  than  theirs ;  and  this  fact  occa- 
sioned some  mutual  interest  and  sympathy,  as  well  as  sug- 
gested several  topics  of  inquiry  and  explanation. 

It  was  ph.in  to  myself  that  the  mind  of  Chalmers,  as  well 
as  other  minds  in  league  with  him,  were  in  process  of  under- 
going a  great  change  in  reference  to  the  question  of  "  the 
Christian  expediency"  of  enthroning  Ctesar  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  God  was  teaching  them  a  lesson,  which  their  great 
teachers  were  slow  to  learn,  and  slower  to  propagate,  about 
the  sole  HEADSHIP  of  Jesus  Christ  in  his  own  Church  ; 
and  that  his  kingdom  is  not  of  this  tcorld,  in  a  sense  and  to 
a  degree  which  their  previous  wisdom  had  not  appreciated. 
God  will  do  more,  in  this  way,  there  and  in  our  own  country. 

It  was  hard  for  the  renowned  advocates  and  the  time-hon- 
ored champions  of  establishment  all  at  once  to  revolutionize 
their  sentiments,  and  their  preaching,  and  their  publishing, 
on  that  great  theme  ;  with  friends  and  enemies  by  thousands, 
alike  the  spectators  of  the  movement,  and  alike  or  variously 
interested  in  its  similar  or  its  various  issues.  They  had  to 
change  their  tactics,  their  allies,  and  the  very  nomenclature 
of  their  technical  erudition.  It  was  intrusion  or  non-intru- 
*  The  motto  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Scotland. 


76  AXTiaUITY    MORE    ANCIEN'T. 

sion  ;  Christ  or  Caesar  ;  the  only  true  and  worthy  headship  of 
the  Church  ;  the  apostolic  way  ;  a  spiritual  legitimacy  or  a 
corrupt  Erastianism  ;  a  free  church  or  a  servile  one  ;  the  prim- 
itive precedents  and  the  traditions  of  the  feudal  ages ;  texts 
of  Scripture  and  acts  of  Parliament ;  a  good  conscience  and  a 
fat  stipend  ;  Christian  principle  and  temporizing  policy.  It 
was  a  time  of  new  questions,  new  issues,  and  new  controver- 
sies, in  Scotland.  It  was  this — or  its  opposite,  in  stiff  con- 
flict. It  was,  generically,  a  new  phase  of  papacy  or  protest- 
antism. It  was  a  learned  going  back  to  the  sacred  antiquity 
of  the  Christian  fathers,  with  all  the  lore  and  the  ore  of  their 
precious  wisdom — or  a  going  fai'ther  back,  to  a  more  learned, 
and  a  more  sacred,  and  a  more  ancient  antiquity,  of  the 
Christian,  grandfathers,  the  Apostles  themselves  ;  as  the 
inspired  and  the  plenipotentiary  oracles  of  Christ,  with  their 
documents  of  divine  wisdom  ;  standing  on  the  platforms  that 
inspired,  and  supported,  and  constituted  all  the  sound,  and 
the  true,  and  the  valuable,  of  "the  Christian  fathers  ;"  and 
that  would  have  made  them  more  and  better,  if  those  Chris- 
tian fathers,  in  their  own  patristic  folly  and  manifold  imper- 
fections, had  not  so  often  deserted  those  divine  platforms — the 
only  basis  of  wisdom  and  of  safety  to  the  standing  and  the 
walking  of  any  uninspired  adventurer  of  any  other  age  sub- 
sequent in  this  world,  ancient  or  modern,  peasant  or  philos- 
opher. Christian  or  theologian,  Turk  or  Jew  ;  and  in  any  age 
of  the  world,  virtually  just  the  same  thing  I  God's  true  sheep 
drink  of  the  rain  of  heaven  from  the  pure  springs  that  Him- 
self has  opened  for  them  in  the  side  of  the  Rock  of  Ages  ; 
while  churchism,  in  all  its  manifold  forms  of  mutual  exclu- 
siveness  and  fantastic  dotage,  enacts  the  dirty  idolatry  of 
drinking  only  at  the  turbid  streams — the  farther  removed 
from  the  proper  fountain,  the  better  ;  since  then  their  illusion 
of  antiquity  has  a  more  imposing  range,  and  a  vaster  retro- 
spect, gloriously  umbrageous,  and  canopied  by  the  venerable 
and  the  filthy  smoke  of  the  paganizing,  the  illiterate,  and  the 


ERASTIAN    PHILOSOPHY.  77 

dark  ages,  in  the  rife  apostasy  ;  so  that  error  mainly  was  held 

SEMPER,  ET  UIJIQUE,  ET  AB  OMNIBUS  ;  with  the  UukuOWU  CODI- 
CES iNSPiRATi  of  the  Bible  under  their  feet.  But  we  say, 
JuvAT  INTEGROS  ACCEDERE  PONTES,  religiously  and  with  all 
our  hearts  : 

'Tis  better,  and  delightful  too,  to  go 

To  the  spring-head,  where  living  waters  flow ; 

While  pagans  in  the  distant  plain  drink  the  vile  wash  below. 

Indeed,  the  word  Erastianism  was  revived  and  familiar, 
and  often  in  use,  especially  by  the  Free  Church,  both  minis- 
ters and  people.  When  the  Reformation  was  introduced  into 
England,  and  all  the  clergy  were  coerced  to  adopt  it,  by  the 
last  and  the  proudest  and  the  vilest  of  their  Henries,  the  first 
layman  that  ever  was  pioclaimed  the  Head  of  the  Church 
there,  many  of  them  acquiesced  in  what  they  did  not  prefer, 
and  vindicated  their  conformity  on  principles  of  the  Erastian 
philosophy,  though  then  under  another  name,  which  they  pro- 
fessed to  believe  and  adopt,  and  of  which,  the  three  cardinal 
and  related  points  were  afterward  embodied  and  shown  to  be 
the  following  : 

(1)  The  Church  has  the  instructive  and  the  suasory  power 
aloiie,  without  all  right  of  government  and  discipline. 

(2)  All  right  of  government  is  in  the  magistracy  alone, 
extending  to  the  Church  as  well  as  the  State. 

(3)  It  is  the  will  of  God,  and  the  dutj'  of  all  subjects,  that 
they  submit  to  the  magistracy,  and  obey  their  authority  and 
their  ordinances. 

It  is  hard  to  tell  whether  this  system  of  the  German  phy- 
sician* be  more  impious  or  absurd.  Let  it  suffice,  with  the 
Christian  philosopher,  to  observe  that  it  is  utterly  unscrip- 
tural,  and  that  the  Free  Church  acted  nobly  and  well  in  re- 
cording their  protest  so  manfully  and  so  decisively  against  it. 
The  keys  of  the  Kingdom  were  never  given  to  Ctesar,  more 
than  to  the  Pope,  the  Sultan,  or  the  Great  Mogul ;  or  than 
*  De  Excommunicatione  Ecclesiastica.    Erastus  died  1583. 


78  GREATNESS   TURNS    SLOWLY. 

plenary  wisdom  was  given  to  that  pragmatical  theological 
adventurer  and  ecclesiastical  charlatan,  Erastus. 

Now,  in  turning  from  establishment  to  dissent,  in  fact,  in 
painful  and  perilous  reality,  it  was  breaking  their  fall,  or, 
rather,  conveniently  and  well  vindicating  their  rise,  to  talk 
of  Erastianism,  which,  as  an  idea  and  as  a  technical  term, 
had  become,  for  nearly  three  centuries,  about  obsolete  in  the 
British  world  ;  and  which  they  could  condenm  in  itself,  and 
charge  on  their  opponents,  both  with  manifest  justice,  and 
also  with  less  show  of  inconsistency — though  some  of  us  be- 
lieve that  previously  they  were,  virtually,  all  Erastians  to- 
gether !  A  steamer  of  magnificent  dimensions,  and  of  keel 
one  sixteenth  of  a  mile  in  length,  as  now  often  seen  afloat 
on  the  surface  of  some  American  river,  sails  gallantly,  and  in 
a  style  of  beauty  and  pleasure,  provoking  almost  the  envy  of 
spectators.  But  she  can  not  turn  as  shortly  and  as  soon  as 
a  smaller  one  !  She  consults  her  own  magnificence  by  ne- 
cessity, in  making  a  larger  gyration  in  the  water,  sailing  in 
curvilinears  less  abrupt,  and  more  as  if  keeping  the  tangent 
of  rectitude  in  her  extensive  course  ;  but  if  it  is  requisite  that 
she  turn  at  all,  if  her  safety  and  her  usefulness  are  the  con- 
secutive result,  who  shall  object  to  the  fact,  because  its  circle 
is  wider,  and  the  seamanship  more  artistic  and  complicated, 
and  the  time  required  longer,  when  they  see  her  nobler  nav- 
igation afterward  in  the  right  direction  ? 


Fuit  haec  sapientia  quondam 
Publica  privatis  seccrnere,  sacra  profanis. — Hor. 
It  once  was  wisdom  duly  to  restrain 
Private  from  public,  sacred  from  profane  ; 
And  what  was  beauty  once  may  be  again. 
I  own  the  moral ;  nor  with  thought  elate, 
Civil  or  rude,  its  law  would  violate. 

Perhaps  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  here  to  remark,  in  few 
words  of  episode,  on  the  domestic  relations  of  Chalmers  and 
his  family — surely  with  no  view  of  revealing  secrets  or  of 


DOMESTIC    SANCTITIES.  70 

indelicate  intrusion.  Nor  will  I  venture  here  as  far  as  1 
could,  though  it  is  little  that  I  know,  compared  with  the 
knowledge  of  others,  in  respect  to  the  moral,  and  the  mental, 
and  the  social  scenery  of  Chalmers  at  home.  I  do  this  with 
the  less  hesitancy,  however,  as  I  have  mainly  no  memories 
that  are  not  agreeable,  and  no  themes  that  may  not  reflect 
honor  on  the  loving  and  the  lovely  inmates  of  his  house.  He 
had  six  daughters,  never  a  son  ;  and  his  bearing  in  his  fam- 
ily seemed  delightfully  to  exemplify  the  virtues  of  the  hus- 
band and  the  father.  Afi'ection  and  famihar  intercourse, 
with  confidence  and  filial  reverence,  seemed  to  pervade  the 
mansion.  Greatness  was  softened  and  adorned  by  more  ob- 
vious goodness.  His  breakfasts  were  comparatively  public  ; 
one  could  hardly  be  a  guest  there  without  meeting  several 
other  strangers.  Ordinarily,  I  think,  after  ten  or  twenty  min- 
utes of  friendly  greeting' and  general  converse,  the  Bible  was 
placed  on  the  breakfast-table  near  his  plate,  the  guests  were 
seated  around  it,  he  read  a  select  passage,  with  sometimes  a 
remark  or  explanation  : 

Then,  kneeling  down  to  heaven's  eternal  King, 

The  saint,  the  father,  and  the  husband  prays  ; 
Hope  "  springs  exulting  on  triumphant  wing," 

That  thus  they  all  shall  meet  in  future  days  ; 

There  ever  bask  in  uncreated  rays, 
No  more  to  sigh  or  shed  the  bitter  tear ; 

Together  hymning  their  [Redeemer's]  praise, 
In  such  society,  yet  still  more  dear, 
While  circhng  time  moves  round  in  an  eternal  sphere. 

Compared  with  this  how  poor  religion's  pride. 

In  aR  the  pomp  of  method  and  of  art ; 
When  men  display  to  congregations  wide 

Devotion's  every  grace — except  the  heart. 

The  Power  incensed,  the  pageant  will  desert, 
The  pompous  strain,  the  sacerdotal  stole ; 

But  haply,  in  some  cottage  far  apart. 
May  hear,  well  pleas'd,  the  language  of  the  soul, 
And  in  his  Book  of  Life  the  inmates  poor  enroll 


80  HIS    TENDERNESS    AND    COURTESY. 

On  one  occasion,  at  his  request,  I  led  the  devotions  of  the 
family.  On  another,  in  1846,  myself  and  daughter  were 
there,  with  several  others,  and  among  these  the  venerable 
Dr.  Beecher  and  his  lady,  of  Cincinnati.  I  thought,  of 
course,  that  he  would  ask  the  doctor  to  officiate  ;  hut  he  did 
not.  In  his  prayer  at  that  time,  the  last  I  ever  heard  him 
offer,  he  seemed  really  enlarged  and  devout  in  an  eminent 
degree.  Such  simplicity  and  reverence,  such  humility  and 
adoration,  such  earnestness  and  confidence,  such  comprehen- 
sion and  friendly  sympathy — and  Chalmers  in  prayer  ;  so  ab- 
sorbed and  so  solemn,  so  appropriate  and  so  believing,  so  in- 
fantile and  so  importunate,  it  was  really  good  to  be  there! 
H.e  ver)'  kindly  and  copiously  referred  to  his  present  Ameri- 
can friends ;  prayed  for  America  ;  and  expatiated  over  the 
world  and  its  wants,  especially  over  those  of  the  Church  and 
the  ministry  ;  commending  them  to  the  eternal  mercy  of  his 
God,  and  pleading  for  their  due  redress,  only  for  the  sake  of 
Christ,  his  Lord  and  his  Redeemer. 

On  a  subsequent  occasion,  he  said  to  me,  alone,  in  a  tender 
and  impressive  manner,  I  fear  I  have  erred  this  morning, 
and  regret  that  I  omitted  to  ask  Dr.  Beecher  to  engage  in 
prayer  with  us.  He  is  indeed  a  venerable  person,  and  I  have 
a  very  great  respect  for  him.  His  career  of  usefulness  has 
been  large,  and  his  reputation  has  traveled  before  him  into 
Scotland. 

1 .  Yes ;  and  in  reference  to  the  great  Temperance  Refor- 
mation, its  progress  owes  more,  probably,  to  his  original  agen- 
cy, than  to  that  of  any  man  living ;  under  God,  he  is  prop- 
erly the  father  of  it.  His  "  six  sermons"  gave  the  original 
projectile  force,  while  his  whole  influence  and  his  eminent 
example  engaged  others  in  the  cause.  Next  to  him,  perhaps, 
were  the  Rev.  Dr.  Humphrey,  President  of  Amherst  College, 
and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Justin  Edwards,  of  Andover.  These  were 
the  first  three  of  David's  men  for  the  work,  and  an  honored 
uiumviratc  in  the  thrice  useful  achievement. 


MRS.   CHALMERS    AND    HER    PLAN.  81 

2.  Think  you  I  could  have  hurt  his  feelings  in  not  asking 
him  ? 

1.  Certainly,  dear  sir,  not  at  all.  Whatever  your  reasons 
might  have  been,  I  know  too  well  the  magnanimity  of  your 
venerable  guest  to  suppose  him  capable  of  impeaching  them. 
May  I  ask  what  they  were,  doctor?  if  the  question  is  proper  I 

2.  Indeed,  I  scarce  know  myself  In  some  degree,  possi- 
bly, it  arose  from  want  of  thought.  Often,  at  breakfast,  we 
have  strangers  and  foreigners  of  the  clergy,  and  when  I  ask 
them  to  pray  vnih.  us,  they  excuse  themselves,  and  this  in- 
duces an  awkward  and  unpleasant  embarrassment  for  a  mo- 
ment. Hence  I  have  become  a  little  sensitive,  or,  to  pre- 
vent the  infelicity,  I  proceed  in  the  action.  But  if  you  at 
all  think,  in  this,  that  I  could  have  injured  the  feelings  of  our 
honored  friend,  I  will  make  a  suitable  explanation,  or  you 
may  do  so  on  my  behalf,  and  I  will  heartily  thank  you  for  it, 
as  it  would  greatly  grieve  me  to  wound  his  feelings,  even  by 
the  shadow  of  indifference  or  neglect. 

I  assured  him  that  I  would,  if  I  could  conceive  there  was 
any  occasion  for  it ;  and  I  record  the  circumstance  as  evinc- 
ing the  delicacy  and  brotherly  kindness  of  Chalmers,  since, 
if  Dr.  Beecher  ever  sees  this,  it  will  be  as  novel  to  him  as  to 
any  other  reader.  As  an  item  of  characteristic  moral  beau- 
ty and  refinement,  as  well  as  amiable  humbleness  and  heav- 
enliness  of  mind,  it  is  quite  worthy  of  notation  and  imitation. 

When,  in  1833,  I  was  newer  as  his  guest,  it  was  my  for- 
mal plan  and  stern  purpose  to  be  a  listener,  rather  than  a 
speaker,  in  his  presence.  Mrs.  Chalmers  perceived  this,  and 
remarked  to  me  apart,  that  she  hoped,  if  I  desired  to  please 
the  doctor  and  his  family,  I  would  more  fuUy  sustain  my  part 
in  the  conversation.  Besides,  she  added,  it  will  be  a  real 
assistance  to  him.  He  has  always  to  entertain  all  these  vis- 
itors ;  and  sometimes  it  is  quite  a  burden  to  him,  especially 
as  his  cares,  and  thoughts,  and  duties  are  commonly  forced 
to  march  in  another  direction  ;  so  you  must  help  him  ;  and 
D  2 


82  THE    DIACONATE WHAT. 

in  this  way  you  will  better  please  the  doctor,  I  can  assure 
you. 

Subsequently,  Dr.  Chalmers  said  to  me,  alone,  almost  the 
same  thinj^s  ;  assuring  me  that,  often  in  appearing  at  break- 
fast, amid  several  entire  strangers,  he  felt  the  difficulty  of 
sustaining  the  conversation  and  furnishing  due  entertainment 
to  the  circle,  as  specially  unfitted  to  figure  in  the  scenes  be- 
fore him,  in  all  their  exaction  and  their  diversity.  This  I  re- 
cord as  evincing  the  simplicity  and  the  unfeigned  modesty  of 
his  character.  If,  said  he,  you  will  help  me  entertain  them, 
I  shall  be  much  your  debtor ;  you  will  have  paid  your  wa^ 
by  your  services. 

On  my  next  visit,  I  found  among  the  distinguished  of  his 
guests  a  reverend  rector  from  England,  and  a  young  candi- 
date with  him,  who  had  just  been  admitted  to  the  order  of 
deacon — such  an  order,  I  must  say,  as  God  never  authorized, 
and  as  the  priftiitive  seven,  with  Stephen,  the  protomartyr, 
at  their  head,  were  not.  They  took  little  notice  of  me, 
though  I  took  quite  a  quantity  of  them. 

Instead  of  caUing  their  diaconate  an  order,  I  would  call  it 
a  mere  porch  or  a  serviceable  stepping-stone  to  orders.  No 
one  ever  takes  it,  as  a  general  thing,  for  its  own  sake,  or  with 
the  view  of  remaining  in  it ;  or  for  any  other  purpose  than 
to  rise,  in  their  only  way  of  the  pyramid,  to  some  loftier  em- 
inence in  office.  We  Presbyterians  reject  the  whole  figure  ; 
believing  in  the  sole,  supreme  headship  of  Christ ;  and  the 
true  power  of  his  ministers  as  merely  declarative  and  minis- 
terial ;  and,  of  course,  in  their  official  parity  and  equality  in 
his  glorious  kingdom.  Hence  our  figure  is  quadrangular, 
rather  is  it  a  proper  cube  ;  with  the  motto — The  length,  and 
the  breadth,  and  the  height  of  it  are  equal ;  like  the  dimen- 
sions of  the  celestial  city,  the  grand  metropolis  of  Israel,  the 
Jerusalem  of  God,  Rev.  21  :  16.  To  those  who  object  the 
antiquity  of  the  office,  we  answer,  by  referring  them  to  the 
higher  antiquity  of  their  institution,  Acts  6  :  1-6,  showing 


A    TEXT WHAT    IT    MEANS.  83 

the  reason  of  it,  the  design  of  it,  and  the  nature  of  it — as  a 
vastly  difierent  thing  from  modern  assumptions  concerning  it. 

At  that  time  the  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  were 
very  aflectionate  to  Chalmers,  as  he  and  they  were  all  in 
favor  of  the  establishments  of  the  British  Caesar  in  the  three 
kingdoms  ;  yet  they  were  not  particularly  in  favor  of  Presby- 
terians, especially  from  America.  It  seemed  as  if  the  con- 
versation lagged,  and  Chalmers  showed  that  it  was  more  an 
effort  than  a  pleasure  to  maintain  it.  He  looked  to  me — 
but  I  almost  instinctively  forbore,  as  doubting  that  I  should 
be  acceptable,  especially  to  the  rector,  whose  bearing  seemed 
rather  lordly,  with  more  of  hauteur  and  pontiff"  arrogance 
than  the  guest  of  such  a  host  ought  to  have  shown.  The 
deacon  was,  like  good  children,  to  "  be  seen,  and  not  heard." 
The  rector — 

3.  I  desire  to  get  your  opinion.  Dr.  Chalmers,  on  the  mean- 
ing of  a  text  of  Scripture  that  seems  obscure  and  difficult ; 
and,  on  the  whole,  I  can  hardly  understand  it.  It  occurs  in 
1  Cor.  2  :  14. 

He  recited  it,  and  Chalmers  appeared  actually  confused, 
as  if  proved  with  too  hard  a  question.      He  replied, 

2.  You  must  excuse  me  from  the  task.  I  am  not  good,  1 
think,  at  exposition,  especially  at  extemporaneous  effort  of  the 
sort.  But  my  friend  from  America  is  here,  and  to  him  I 
shall  take  leave  to  refer  you  for  the  exegesis  of  that  passage. 

The  rector  looked  at  me,  and  I  looked  at  him  ;  the  doctor 
insisted  that  I  should  reply  and  give  the  exposition. 

1.  I  must  respectfully  decline,  doctor. 

2.  But  you  have  no  good  reason,  I  am  thinking ;  and  we 
shall  all  join  suit  and  expect  your  compliance.  Let  us  hear 
from  America. 

1.  It  was  not  to  me,  good  sir,  that  the  appeal  was  put,  and 
I  have  no  regular  call  to  it.  I  know,  indeed,  what  I  think 
it  means  ;  but  when  the  theological  chair  of  Edinburgh  is 
invoked  as  an  oracle,  I  hold  it  proper  to  hold  my  tongue ;  I 


84  EXPOSITION    IN    THE    PULPIT. 

also  want  to  hear  what  you  think  of  it.  It  is  a  very  import- 
ant passage  ;  and  the  response  will  be,  I  trust,  worthy  of 
our  best  commemoration. 

The  rector  looked — paused — and  at  length  acquiesced  in 
the  reference  of  Chalmers  ;  especially  as  he  altogether  de- 
clined, and  excused  himself,  as  what  he  could  not  properly 
attempt. 

In  this  predicament  I  thought  it  wiser  also  to  acquiesce, 
especially  as  I  remembered  the  original,  and  knew  what  I 
thought  the  meaning  to  be  ;  and  as  I  could  forbear  no  lon- 
ger, without  seeming  obstinate,  or  foolishly  fond  of  the  posi- 
tion of  neutrality,  I  proceeded  —  to  the  end;  when  Chal- 
mers remarked  :  I  entirely  concur  in  that  view ;  you  have 
shown,  I  think,  the  plain,  or  the  demonstrable  sense  of  the 
passage.  The  rector  listened,  as  if  he  thought  it  questionable 
whether  or  not  I  "  belonged  to  the  succession,"  even  if  Chal- 
mers did  ;  which  might  be  doubted,  as  he  endorsed  me  on 
the  occasion. 

"VYc  were  soon  after  alone,  when  the  following  conversa- 
tion, or  something  much  like  it,  ensued. 

2.  Do  you  practice  that  good  business  of  exposition  in  the 
pulpit — is  it  common  in  America  ?  I  have  some  reasons  for 
the  question. 

1 .  You  ask,  Do  all  interpret  ?  No,  indeed  I  Whatever 
be  the  reason,  it  is  done  there — not  half  enough  of  it ;  and 
not  that,  half  well  enough.  Still,  we  are  in  progress,  im- 
proving. Our  theological  seminaries  are  inducing  the  her- 
meneutic  science,  and  the  exegetic  method,  and  the  proper 
sacred  homiletics  ;  with  good  promise  of  advancement  in 
Scriptural  theology,  and  in  the  increasing  light  and  power  of 
popular  instruction.  May  I  ask,  How  is  it  here  ?  Exposi- 
tion is  not  your  forte  in  Scotland,  is  it  ?  From  some  reports 
and  some  specimens  I  should  so  infer. 

2.  No,  indeed.  Apart  from  Dr.  Campbell  and  Dr. 
M' Knight,  we  have  had  very  few  eminent  scholars  and  ex- 


ITS    GREAT    USE    AND    POWER.  86 

pounders  in  that  department.  In  fact,  to  do  it  well  is  very 
difficult,  especially  to  a  popular  audience  ;  and  if  not  done 
well,  it  were  better  left  off,  like  contention.,  before  it  is  med- 
dled loith.  For  one,  I  can  not  master  it ;  it  rather  masters 
me  ;  and  yet  I  think  well  of  doing  it,  if  I  could  do  it  just  as 
I  ought.     It  is  a  great  gift,  which  we  may  well  covet. 

1.  Yes,  it  is  an  endowment  and  an  attainment  both  ;  and 
so  very  valuable  and  edifying  to  the  elect  of  God,  that,  in 
general,  I  would  say  to  every  preacher — stir  up  the  gift  of 
God  that  is  iii  thee — rightly  dividing  the  ivord  of  truth — 
if  any  man  speak,  let  him  speak  as  the  oracles  of  God — 
BY  MANIFESTATION  OF  THE  TRUTH  Commending  ourselves  to 
every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God — preach  the 
word. 

2.  1  quite  agree  with  you  ;  but  I  have  done  too  little  of 
it,  in  my  own  ministrations,  thus  far,  all  the  way. 

1.  You  will  write,  I  hope,  some  commentary  yet,  and  give 
it  to  the  public.  You  could  do  it,  I  am  sure,  though  hitherto 
it  may  be  less  in  your  li?ie  of  things.  It  would  be  well  re- 
ceived every  where. 

Nor,  in  the  pulpit,  compared  with  rich  and  able  exposi- 
tion, is  there  any  public  exercise  more  professional  or  appro- 
priate. Besides,  my  dear  sir,  as  you  are  the  Elijah  of  Scot- 
land, with  several  of  the  Elisha  class  to  assist  you,  as  a  train- 
er of  the  sons  of  the  prophets  for  the  tribes  of  Israel,  may  it 
not  properly  be  said  to  you  that  this  is  the  chief  thing  these 
cadets  are  to  learn  ?  Is  the  Bible  his  letter  of  instructions 
from  the  court  of  heaven,  and  yet  is  not  the  embassador  of 
Christ,  as  the  august  official  representative  of  that  court,  to 
be  furnished  and  able  to  command  the  masteiy  of  its  con- 
tents, for  all  his  high  negotiations  on  God's  behalf,  in  the  con- 
ciliation of  immortal  mind  and  the  pacification  to  God  of  the 
impious  rebels  that  contemn  his  throne  ?  Heresies,  errors, 
and  mistakes  are  ever  rife  in  Christendom,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  diabolical  darkness  of  heathendom  ;  and  they  are  to  be 


86  INTERPRETATION    THE    THING. 

met  and  refuted,  in  all  their  ever-varying  costumes  and  forms, 
or,  better,  with  a  heaven-illuminated  atmosphere,  prevented, 
by  the  incomparable  and  the  original  batteries  of  heaven, 
opened  and  firing  on  them.  Nothing  but  the  word  of  God, 
AS  SUCH,  is  the  sword  of  Uue  Spirit,  the  grand  authentic  in- 
strument of  the  world's  rectification  and  return  to  God  ;  and 
his  favor  may  we  expect,  only  as  we  legitimately  seek  it, 
only  as  we  faithfully  subserve  his  own  influence  to  his  own 
glory  forever.  But  the  word  of  God  itself  is  to  be  interpret- 
ed, its  true  sense  evolved,  vindicated,  maintained,  and  ap- 
plied. And  what  rich  and  learned  mastei-y  does  this  imply ! 
Men  may  write  essays,  and  cap  them  with  a  text ;  they  may 
take  a  theological  thesis,  and  be  most  specious  and  sanctilo- 
quent  in  its  expansion  and  its  management  :  still,  it  is  man, 
rather  than  God,  talking  to  the  hearers  ;  it  befits  less  the 
Churches  than  the  schools  ;  it  is  redolent  more  of  logic,  rhet- 
oric, and  classic  formula,  after  the  traditions  of  nien,  than 
of  Christ,  in  the  way  of  the  Spirit,  and  with  the  sanctions  of 
the  living  God.  This  is  surely  the  grand  desideratum  of  the 
age — MASTERLY  INTERPRETATION.  No  man  ou  earth  is  in- 
spired, or  ever  will  be  again.  Inspiration  is  ever  living,  plen- 
ary, and  apt  for  all  sacred  uses  of  duty  and  salvation,  by  the 
very  plan  of  God,  in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Now  we  want  a 
ministry  that  can  master  the  sense  of  scripture  and  commu- 
nicate it  to  the  people.  This  is  God's  high  ordinance,  ever 
since  the  time  of  building  the  second  Temple,  Neh.  8  :  4-12. 
Oh  I  for  its  revival  in  all  the  Churches  I  God  will  do  this, 
as  surely  as  he  will  accomplish  Dan.  7  :  27,  and  bring  his 
own  reign  in  the  millennium. 


This  conversation  occurred  on  my  first  visit — I  recur  to 
my  second,  July,  1846. 

After  a  pleasant  colloquial  breakfast  at  Morningside,  we 
proposed  returning  to  the  city,  either  in  pedestrian  plight,  or, 
at  any  rate,  taking  the  bus,  after  some  grateful  excursion  on 


MORNING    WALK    WITH    CHALMERS.  87 

foot — "  bus"  being,  in  all  the  British  world,  the  regular  ab- 
breviation for  omnibus;  lor  "cab,"  the  common  word  in 
Edinburgh  seems  to  be  "  minibus  ;"  a  carry-all  is  called  "  a 
van."  This  last  word  I  shall  use  presently,  and  with  em- 
phatic memory. 

Dr.  Chalmers  insisted  on  walking  with  our  party  some 
distance  ;  and  we  submitted  most  cordially.  That  walk, 
and  the  talk  that  beguiled  its  progress,  were  very  delightful 
and  worthy  of  our  memoiy.  My  daughter  had  the  honor  of 
his  arm,  and  the  doctor  was  full  of  innocent  glee  and  witty 
sayings,  as  he  led  us  circuitously  about,  explained  the  scen- 
ery, the  localities  of  nature  and  of  art,  expansive  around  us, 
as  we  traveled,  traversed  the  circumference  of  prospect,  and 
listened  to  his  kind  observations,  full  of  sparkling  good  hu- 
mor and  genial  coruscations  of  wit. 

1.  There  seems,  doctor,  a  neat  new  edifice  yonder,  built 
by  your  free  allies,  I  think.  Where  is  the  old  hive  whence 
the  swarm  emigrated  ?  It  is  one  of  your  new  and  free  edi- 
fices, I  think. 

2.  There  it  is — do  you  see  ?  Well,  truly,  when  the  residu- 
aries  were  all  alone,  with  themselves  and  their  fealty,  they 
were  sadly  run  for  a  preacher  to  a  place,  through  all  Scot- 
land. They  called  forth  every  clerk  unknown  to  fame  and 
miwonted  to  the  duties  of  the  kirk,  and  metamorphosed  him 
into  a  first-rate  preacher,  as  if  by  a  sort  of  queen's  magic 
that  they  have,  and  they  intruded  him,  "  by  authority,"  into 
all  the  vacant  stalls  of  their  afflicted  jurisdiction.  So  to  that 
old  one  they  ordered  a  man  whom  the  people  thought  to  be 
no  man  at  all ;  and  with  much  of  the  spirit  of  John  Knox, 
or,  rather,  I  hope,  of  his  master  in  them,  they  one  and  all,  to 
the  precentor  and  the  beadle  of  the  parish,  resolved  to  give 
a  wide  berth  to  the  Presbytery's  intruder,  whom  they  would 
not  honor  or  receive  as  their  spiritual  teacher — no,  not  for 
an  hour.  So  they  performed  a  total  exodus  on  the  occasion, 
and  left  him  plenty  of  naked  walls,  and  vacant  pews,  and 


88  THE  presbytery's  intruder. 

empty  benches  for  the  probation  of  his  zeal  and  the  recrea 
tion  of  his  voice,  that  day.  Not  one  of  them  remained — their 
house  was  left  to  tliem  quite  desolate,  I  assure  you.  The 
people  were  intelligent,  and  they  were  unanimous,  too — now 
they  occupy  that  new  edifice,  happy  and  prosperous  there. 
But — such  revolutions  of  the  sort !  It  is  quite  a  transform- 
ation, social  and  ecclesiastical,  in  the  whole  country  of  the 
North. 

1 .  Yes  ;  you  are  Americanizing  here  very  fast !  Success 
to  the  process,  doctor.  You  see  and  feel  now  some  of  the 
productive  virtues  of  the  voluntary  principle,  the  voluntaiy 
system,  in  contrast  with  the  loving  patronage  of  your  quon- 
dam host,  Cajsar — we  welcome  and  honor  you  as  all  dissent- 
ers de  facto. 

2.  But — the  intruder  ;  I  had  almost  forgot  the  faithful 
paragon  of  wit,  and  strategy,  and  courage  that  he  showed 
himself.  Getting  some  wind  of  the  movement  and  the  con- 
sequent vacancy  that  was  expecting  his  intrusion,  he  obtain- 
ed a  capacious  old  van,  and  one  horse  to  draw  it,  and  put 
aboard  of  it  as  many  of  his  own  family  and  friends  as  it 
could  contain,  and  so  he  traveled  to  the  empty  edifice  with 
difficulty — for  the  poor  quadruped  was  sorely  worked  and 
pestered  with  his  burden.  The  vis  ineiticB  of  matter  was 
laboriously  against  him,  as  he  impelled  it ;  and  the  wheels 
got  no  blessing  from  the  people  as  they  rolled  on  their  axles 
past  their  doors  ;  and  the  patient  beast  groaned  as  he  moved, 
fatigued  and  dispirited,  with  so  great  a  load  of  Erastianism, 
as  he  never  encountered  before,  in  all  his  laborious  and  pro- 
pulsive experience  ;  tiU  at  length  he  reached  the  place — after 
a  long,  and  a  rough,  and  a  heavy  operation,  that  morning. 
Well,  now,  leaving  the  horse  for  the  man — he  took  possession 
with  his  company,  and  not  another  person  was  there.  But 
he — brave  soldier  I  preached  courageously,  as  he  was  bid. 
The  whole  congregation  listened  to  him,  as  became  them,  all 
mightily  convinced,  if  not  converted ;  his  eloquence  was  quite 


FACETIOUS,    NOT    COARSE    OR    CROSS.  89 

extraordinary — and  his  oratory,  nei'vous  and  impassioned  to 
a  wonder;  he  outdid  himself";  he  was  plainly  the  greatest 
man  in  the  house,  if  not  in  the  country  ;  and  lor  the  first  time 
in  his  life  he  gave  universal  satisfaction  to  his  hearers — he 
actually  carried,  for  once,  his  whole  audience  along  with  him  I 
And  that  was  preaching,  as  the  echoes  of  emptiness  resound- 
ed to  the  voice  of  the  preacher,  ore  rotiindo,  declaiming  to 
them,  where  a  close-packed  multitude  of  Christian  people, 
and  their  children  witli  them,  used  to  convene,  and  listen 
to  his  word,  as  the  beloved  of  the  Lord. 


In  all  this,  however,  I  must  aver,  there  was  no  malignity. 
It  is  difficult  to  relate  it,  without  some  resulting  injury.  Chal- 
mers was  in  the  happy  and  unbent  mood  of  kindness — in  the 
vein  of  cheerful  confidence,  as  recreating  with  his  friends. 
His  words  and  thoughts,  prompted  by  the  moving  scenery 
around  him,  flowed  at  once  extemporaneous  and  clever,  with 
no  apprehension  of 

A  chief's  amang  you  taking  notes. 
And,  faith,  he'lf  prent  it. 

It  was,  indeed,  an  amiableness  of  display,  the  more  worthy  as 
utterly  inartificial  and  spontaneous.  He  seemed  not  to  know 
that  he  was  great,  or  celebrated,  or  admired  by  those  around 
him,  and  by  all  Christendom.  It  was  an  elegant  exemplifi- 
cation of  the  idea  of  Horace,  with  nothing  low,  or  improper, 
or  vinkind  in  it — Ditlce  est  in  loco  desipere. 

'Tis  pleasure,  and  no  damage  to  the  wise, 
Sometimes  to  leave  the  problem  and  the  prize, 
Body  and  mind,  in  chase  of  butterflies. 

And  the  same  great  poet  expresses  a  similar  sentiment  in 
another  place — if  I  recollect  it  right. 

Noil  semper  arcum  tcndit  Apollo: 
The  god  of  eloquence,  and  all  the  arts, 
Not  always  bends  his  bow  or  throws  his  darts. 


90  NOCTURNAL    WALK    FROM    MORNINGSIDE. 

Elastic  more,  his  bow  unstrung  is  found, 
His  mind  at  rest  becomes  the  more  profound. 
All  nature  sleeps  more  vigorous  to  awake, 
Nor  wisdom  shines  less  brilliant  for  its  sake. 

It  was  now  that  the  doctor  made  another  private  assigna- 
tion with  me,  as  he  had  more  questions  to  put  in  relation  to 
things  in  America.  At  the  designated  time,  "  punctual  as 
lovers  to  the  moment  sworn,"  I  came  alone  to  Morningside 
in  the  early  evening.  It  was  clear  and  beautiful.  The  sum- 
mer solstice  was  in  its  wane  ;  yet  both  the  air  was  balmy, 
and  the  solar  light,  as  if  reluctant  to  part  with  the  rich  scen- 
ery that  its  presence  there  evokes  and  decorates  in  the  warm 
season,  kept,  in  that  high  latitude,  the  twilight  deceitfully 
prolonged.  At  eleven  o'clock,  or  near  twelve,  when  I  walked 
back  to  Edinburgh,  enjoying  the  solitude  and  the  sceneiy,  it 
was  lucent  and  pleasant — as  if  the  firmament  and  the  at- 
mosphere had  conspired  to  beguile  me,  with  the  conscious- 
ness that  it  was  only  half  an  hour  after  sundown.  It  was 
the  regular  nocturnal  aurora  borealis  of  Scotland.  The 
sun  seemed  only  to  dip  for  an  hour  beneath  the  northern  pole, 
while  his  attendant  radiations  and  refractions  left  the  very 
night  with  .pledges  of  returning  day,  and  the  rich  crepuscular 
glories  of  the  sky  seemed  to  contradict  the  dial-plate  of  our 
watches,  in  answering  the  question,  What  is  the  hour  ?  The 
north-star,  that  bright  and  faithful  friend  of  many  a  lonely 
traveler,  shone  mild,  and  clear,  and  beautiful,  and  almost  vert- 
ical— so  high,  it  seemed  not  the  same  I  had  greeted  and 
loved  from  my  youth,  in  America,  full  fifteen  degrees  lower 
there  ;  here  more  central  and  thronal,  in  the  illuminated 
dome  of  the  nocturnal  heavens. 

We  were  soon  together  in  his  study,  and  his  questions  and 
my  answers  were  in  animated  progress.  Our  topics  were  the 
divines  of  America,  living  and  dead  ;  the  state  of  religion  and 
education  there  ;  and  especially  the  late  rupture,  nine  years 
before,  in  the  Presbyterian  Church ;  not  without  some  com- 


DIVINES    OF    AMERICA.  91 

parisons  between  their  disruption,  then  of  three  years'  con- 
tinuance, and  ours  ;  the  analogies  and  the  difierences,  and 
their  common  influences  on  the  general  cause  of  apostolical 
religion  throughout  the  world.  As  Presbyterians  in  common, 
sincerely  we  loved  our  doctrine  and  our  polity  ;  as  generical- 
ly  identified  with  genuine  Christianity,  and  as  contradistin- 
guished from  all  the  forms  of  the  paganizing  virus  of  church- 
ism — a  proud,  usurping  monopoly,  and  like  the  hostile  mis- 
anthropy of  the  autocratic  Arabs,  in  any  or  in  all  countries. 
But  I  must  here  make  selections,  inserting  some  and  omit- 
ting other  things,   with  due   discretion  and  regard  to  utility. 

In  reference  to  our  great  theologians,  he  made  many  quite 
hearty  inquiries — especially  Griffin*  and  Stuart  among  the 
living,  D  wight  and  Edwards  among  the  dead.  He  praised 
these  all  for  appropriate  excellences  ;  but  of  Edwards  he 
loved  to  speak  as  our  Great  Man  of  the  Church.  The 
strength  and  sagacity  of  his  mind,  and  his  great  power  as  a 
patient  and  elaborate  reasoner,  though  dry  and  abstract  in 
the  main,  received  his  recognition  and  his  commendation. 

2.  I  read  him  with  equal  admiration  and  fatigue.  Some- 
times I  feel  strait-laced  in  his  philosophy,  convinced  and  full 
of  it,  and  yet  pinioned  and  embarrassed  by  it  in  the  pulpit. 
I  can  not  preach  with  it,  and  I  can  not  preach  it ;  so  I  had 
rather  forget  all  his  clear  and  deep  metaphysics,  read  my  Bi- 
ble, be  full  of  what  it  says,  and  then  preach  with  all  the  full- 
ness and  the  freedom  it  inspires.  The  Bible  is  full  of  free- 
dom and  glory. 

1 .  Probably  I  know  by  experience  exactly  what  you  mean ! 

*  I  here  perpetrate,  confessedly,  an  innocent  anachronism,  by  in- 
serting several  things  that  occurred  in  1833  as  if  they  happened  in 
1846.  Tltis  is  now  convenient,  and  no  evil  is  involved  in  it.  Dr. 
Griffin,  however,  was  not  aUve  in  1846,  having  died  eight  or  nine 
years  before.  His  gigantic  thought  and  teeming  eloquence  received 
the  testimony  of  Chalmers.  He  said  to  me,  quite  energetically,  "  And 
who  ez  that  Graffun  1     I  should  like  to  hare  aboot  em." 


92  PRESIDENT    EDWARDS. 

2.  Yes,  it  is  so — even  if  the  cause  is  in  our  own  want  of 
comprehension,  or  our  puerility  or  insipidity  in  contact  with 
liis  great  mind.  You  know  how  our  school  oi  Humean  in- 
fidels once  claimed  him  ? 

1 .  I  do  ;  but  it  was  like  their  impiety  and  their  impudence 
to  do  it. 

2.  It  was  ;  still,  they  were  very  specious.  His  doctrine  of 
moral  necessity,  especially,  in  his  great  Essay  on  the  Will, 
seemed  almost  to  allow  their  premises.  They  construed  him 
as  virtually  with  them,  in  those  philosophical  views,  in  which 
they  seem  to  superinduce  a  plausible  fatalism,  and  eflectually 
to  preclude  the  accountable  free-agency  of  men.  Hence  they 
lauded  his  great  talents,  and  appropriated  his  eminence,  as  if 
it  was  a  support  and  a  sanction  to  their  boasted  philosophy. 

1.  Ay,  to  their  purblind  infidelity.  I  wonder  if  one  of 
them  ever  read  his  E.ssay  through,  ever  tried  to  comprehend 
the  scope  of  it,  its  sense  and  plan,  and  the  real  drift  of  his 
argumentation  ?     I  doubt  if  they  ever  did  such  a  thing  ! 

2.  Are  you,  then,  quite  with  it  and  for  it  ? 

1.  Pretty  nearly.  I  think  it  has  faults,  infelicities,  and 
weaknesses,  and  also  that  no  mere  scholasticism  can  well 
comprehend  its  author.  One  must  see  his  great  object,  his 
subservient  method,  and  not  make  him  a)i  offender  for  a 
word,  nor  criticise  too  literally  or  too  sternly  his  technicali- 
ties or  his  terminology.  It  is  a  polemico-theological  perform- 
ance, and  refers  to  the  great  Arminian  controversy — to  what 
he  conceived  the  grand  point  of  the  collisions  at  the  Synod 
of  Dort,  and  to  its  resulting  consequences  in  the  Protestant 
theology  of  the  world. 

2.  And  his  chosen  type  of  controversy  was  highly  meta- 
physical and  psychological.  He  intends  by  the  analysis  of 
mind,  and  the  philosophy  of  its  moral  acts,  to  demonstrate 
the  truth  of  generic  Calvinism. 

1.  I  think  so.  Arminians  are  very  fond  of  asserting  that 
man  is  a  free  agent — a  truism  that  no  one  disputes.     Y'^et  in 


THE    CLIQUE    AND    FOLLY    OF    HUME.  03 

what  his  freedom  consists,  and  whether  it  is  consistent  with 
the  purposes  and  the  providences  ol"  God,  or  how  it  can  be, 
they  are  not  the  men  to  tell.  Hence  they  often  supersede 
those  purposes,  to  keep  their  favorite  dogma,  in  their  own 
sense  of  it ;  just  as  Antinomians  sometimes  deny  the  freedom 
of  the  will,  or  rather  of  human  agents,  that  they  may  keep 
their  own  view  and  vision  instar  omnhivi  of  the  decrees. 
Now  Edwards  believed  the  twcr  together  as  perfectly  true, 
each  of  them,  and  as  perfectly  harmonious,  both  of  them. 
He  was  no  hobby-rider  or  mule-driver,  nor  was  he  a  man  of 
only  one  idea. 

2.  Yes  ;  and  he  is  surely  not  far  from  right  in  the  main. 

1.  He  truly  is  ;  and  your  great  Dugald  Stuart,  I  hear,  has 
allowed  as  much,  nay,  has  said  more  ;  namely,  that  it  has 
never  been  answered,  and  probably  never  will  be  answered 
— that  is,  refuted.  If  so,  remember,  it  was  an  American 
that  did  it.  For  one,  I  own  my  great  obligations  to  him  ; 
for  I  early  saw  his  meaning,  and  liked  it,  not  repudiating  so 
grand  a  master-piece  because  minute  criticism,  with  flies' 
eyes,  can  see  some  few  blemishes  or  incongruities  possibly,  in 
so  imperial  and  magnificent  a  pile  of  metaphysico-theological 
reasoning. 

2.  I  think  the  grand  objection  among  vts  is  his  views  of 
moral  necessity,  as  repulsive  and  fatahzing — the  very  reason 
of  Hume  and  his  clique  seeming  to  like  and  claim  him,  say- 
ing, the  great  American  metaphysician  was  with  them. 

1.  When  a  friend  wrote,  and  told  him  of  that  appropria- 
tion, you  remember,  surely,  his  noble  reply.  They  could  not 
claim  him  afterward.  By-the-way,  I  wonder  at  the  inapt- 
ness  of  some  great  and  good  men,  even  in  their  scientific 
statements,  to  understand  him.  They  stumble  and  object  so 
much  at  the  idea  of  moral  necessity  I  It  consists  plainly  with 
freedom  ;  we  are  perfectly  voluntary  in  it  ;  it  is,  imder  God, 
all  of  our  own  making.  Look  at  God  himself — He  can  not 
lie — it  is  IMPOSSIBLE,  we  are  told.     Well,  does  this  remove 


94  MORAL    NECESSITY    AND    FREEDOM. 

or  impair  his  freedom?  Preposterous!  The  quintessence  of 
nonsense  !  No  other  beuig  is  so  perfectly  free,  or  so  morally 
necessitated  to  do  right,  and  act  with  such  infinite  and  ab- 
solute wisdom  in  all  things. 

Henry  Home,  Lord  Kaimes,  in  his  Essays,  was  much  at 
one  with  Hume  ;  and  Edwards,  pronouncing  their  views  in- 
fidel and  corrupt,  vindicates  himself,  in  his  letters  to  Scot- 
land, from  their  abhorred  communion.  He  declares  "  that 
such  a  necessity  as  attends  the  acts  of  men's  will  is  more 
properly  called  certainty  than  necessity ;  it  being  no  other 
than  the  certain  connection  between  the  subject  and  predi- 
cate of  the  proposition  which  affirms  their  existence."  He 
says,  also,  "  I  have  abundantly  expressed  it  as  my  mind,  that 
man,  in  his  moral  actions,  has  true  liberty  ;  and  that  the 
moral  necessity  which  universally  takes  place  is  not  in  the 
least  inconsistent  with  any  thing  that  is  properly  called  lib- 
erty, and  with  the  utmost  liberty  that  can  be  desired,  or  that 
can  possibly  exist  or  be  conceived  of."  What,  then,  do  those 
wise  men  mean  who  cavil  at  his  use  of  the  term  necessity  ? 
The  words  italicized  above  are  by  his  own  pen.  Do  they 
say  that  certainty,  because  God  can  see  it  in  its  future,  is 
therefore  fatalism,  befitting  more  the  porch  of  Xeno,  or  the 
throne  of  the  supreme  mufti  at  Constantinople,  than  the  the- 
ology of  a  Christian  philosopher  ?  Edwards  was  infinitely  far 
removed  from  Fatalist,  Stoic,  Antinomian,  dotard,  and  fool ! 
If  God  eternally  foresees  our  actions  with  the  foreknowledge 
of  vision,  he  foresees  as  well  that  they  are  ours  ;  that  we  are 
free,  and  voluntary,  and  so  accountable  in  them  ;  and  that 
their  evil  is  our  own  sin,  and  as  such  punishable  by  justice, 
or  pardonable  by  grace,  in  their  proper  nature. 

2.  It  seems,  indeed,  to  be  easy  as  you  state  it. 

1.  Well,  dear  sir,  and  what  says  himself  of  it?  Why,  that 
all  he  means  is,  that  the  future  actions  of  men,  all  of  them, 
are  objects  of  historical  vision  to  God.  Yet  they  are  perfect- 
ly free.     God  sees  them  infallibly  and  universally,  good  and 


CERTAINTY    OF    FREE    ACTIONS.  95 

bad,  from  eternity  as  future,  just  as  they  are,  and  just  as  he 
sees  them  all,  to  eternity,  as  past.  So  that  certainty  is  the 
key  to  all  he  means — "  certainty"  is  his  own  word,  in  reply 
to  the  letter.  God  predicts  often  the  free  moral  actions  of 
men.  He  described  those  of  Judas  ten  or  eleven  centuriei 
before  he  was  born.  He  predicted  the  sins  of  Peter,  emphat- 
ically, a  few  hours  before  he  did  them.  So  of  many  others. 
Well,  this  was  not  to  take  their  free  agency  from  them — yet 
it  was  necessary  that  their  actions  should  seem  to  fulfill  the 
prophecies  ;  and  they  did  occur  ;  and  they  were  perfectly  free 
too  I  I  fully  believe  with  him — and  never  saw  a  man  yet 
that  could  logically  meet  his  argument  and  refute  it.  In- 
deed, I  believe  that  moral  necessity  is  not  only  consistent 
with  freedom,  but  essential  to  it,  and  that  the  Arminian  idea 
of  freedom  is  nothing  better  than  metaphysical  foolery  on 
stilts — it  is,  that  absolute  contingency,  in  eventuation,  is  nec- 
essary to  free  moral  agency  every  where  I  If  it  were — God 
has  no  freedom ;  since  there  is  no  contingency  at  all  in  his 
eternal  agency.  And  must  a  man  be  more  free  than  God, 
in  order  to  be  accountable,  or  a  moral  agent,  or — an  Armin- 
ian ?  They  may  be  good  men,  possibly,  who  assert  or  imply 
this,  in  spite  of  their  reasonings  ;  we  must  be  quite  excused 
for  thinking  them  far  enough  from  wise  ones.  They  are 
quite  free  enough  in  their  nonsense  and  their  drivel — and  so 
is  God,  in  seeing  it,  and  in  despising  it,  from  eternity  and  to 
eternity  ;  for  eternity  is  the  hfetime  of  God,  the  habitation 
of  his  glorious  being. 

2.  Your  New  England  divines,  I  think,  are  distingixished 
for  the  metaphysical  cast  of  their  theology. 

1.  They  are;  and  so  are  your  Scotch  divines;  only  that 
the  mode  of  your  metaphysical  inquiry  and  preaching  is  of  a 
different  type  from  ours.  I  have  witnessed  some  of  your 
Scotch  metaphysics  in  the  pulpit  ;  and  as  comparisons  miglit 
be  perilous,  if  not  odious,  1  only  say  that  ours  is  different,  is 
American  ;   more  conformed  to  that  of  our  illustrious  Ed- 


96  OUR  REVOLUTION  REPRODUCED. 

wards,  and  his  illustrious  grandson,  Dwight,  than  to  your  ver- 
nacular models.  Which  is  the  more  scriptural,  the  more 
masterly,  the  more  useful,  I  may  not  affirm,  whatever  is  my 
opinion. 

2.  You  deal  possibly  too  much  in  metaphysical  theology. 
Had  it  not  a  real  or  a  latent  influence  in  your  late  ecclesi 
astical  explosions  ?  Come,  tell  me  fairly  now  all  about  that 
controversy,  its  antecedents  and  its  results  ;  for  you  set  the 
example,  six  years  earlier  than  we  followed  it  in  ours. 

1.  Yes  ;  but  not,  I  hope,  like  France,  making  a  bad,  a  very 
bad  copy  of  our  Revolution,  or  a  worse  reproduction  of  some- 
thing not  very  like  ours,  about  six  years  after  ours  was  over. 

2.  I  am  quite  desirous  to  understand  yours  of  1837  and 
1838  and  onward,  to  see  if  there  be  any  or  what  similitude 
between  yours  and  ours. 

1.  Perhaps  I  am  not  the  right  one  to  tell  you,  for  I  am  de- 
cisively on  one  side,  and  that  the  constitutional ;  protesting 
with  all  my  soul  against  the  conj)  d'etat  of  perjury  and  wick- 
edness by  which  it  was  done,  even  if  good  men  did  it  I  Still, 
one  of  the  other  side  might  be  no  more  impartial,  no  more 
trustworthy,  no  more  well-informed  or  correct.  Besides,  I 
will  endeavor  to  tell  the  truth,  as  I  surely  believe  it ;  though 
not  unaware  that  some,  who,  I  think,  are  themselves  badly 
committed,  interested,  and  unscrupulous,  will  condemn,  both 
a  priori  and  a  posteriori,  whatever  I  say,  in  the  main,  con- 
nected with  it.  I  expect  no  quarter,  and  no  justice,  and  es- 
pecially no  brotherly  kindness,  from  some  of  their  eminences, 
who  chiefly  did  the  sin  ;  or,  should  I  receive  any  proper  dem- 
onstration of  such  qualities  at  their  hand — the  hand  of  some 
I  say,  not  all,  or  the  majority  of  them — I  should  be  encour- 
aged in  my  hopes  of  the  approaching  millennium. 

2.  I  never  could  properly  see  what  you  had,  comparative- 
ly, in  America,  about  which  to  get  up  such  a  quarrel,  such  a 
revolutionary  civil  war,  in  your  ecclesiastical  relations  ;  what 
were  the  causes  ? 


«IX    MAIN    CAtSE8    OF    OURS.  97 

1.  They  were  a  rare  specimen,  a  conglomerate  of  several 
kinds  and  classes  ;  I  would  state,  mainly,  six  in  all  : 

(1)  Doctrinal  diflerences,  chiefly  allecting  the  metaphys- 
ical statements  or  modes  of  illustration  and  vindication,  in 
reference  to  our  common  generic  Calvinism. 

(2)  The  economy  of  general  beneficence,  as  ecclesiastical 
or  sustained  on  the  voluntary  principle ;  or,  rather,  leaving 
it  free  and  optional  with  all  donors,  in  what  way  their  char- 
ities should  find  their  objects. 

(3)  Our  correspondence  and  our  pact  with  our  orthodox 
Congregational  brethren ;  we  co-operatively  favoring,  they 
constantly  and  jealously  oppugning  them. 

-    (4)  The  influence  of  partisanship,  and  the  strife  for  as- 
cendency and  power. 

(5)  The  concealed  but  most  potential  influence  of  slavery 
— the  South,  though  much  with  us  on  other  themes,  going 
mainly  with  them  in  the  division — their  small  majority  be- 
ing thence  constituted,  as  it  remains  at  this  day. 

(6)  The  special  agency  of  one  or  two  ecclesiastical  coun- 
terparts of  Hannibal,  or  Catiline,  or  Ajax,  or  rather  of  Dio- 
trephes,  who,  though  comparative  novices  in  the  ministry 
and  in  the  Church,  deserved  the  title,  which  they  appropri- 
ately procured  to  themselves,  of  juvenile  patriarchs  in  the 
revolution  ;  such  was  their  leadership,  their  sway,  their  fury, 
their  "nunc  aut  nunquam''  precipitation  in  the  scene,  which 
many  were  afraid  to  follow  ;  only  they  were  more  afiraid  to 
refuse,  as  more  and  more  intimidated  and  driven  to  adopt 
and  exemplify  it,  in  that  unparalleled  and  terrible  crisis  of  oui 
history. 

There  never  was  any  thing  of  the  sort  enacted  so  perfectly 
anti-constitutional ;  but  for  this  they  practically  care  nothing  ; 
calling  it  a  worn-out  argument — much  as  the  law  of  God 
becomes  quite  obsolete  to  some  reprobates  who  never  keep  it  I 
They  were  sworn  to  the  Constitution  ;  they  conspired,  and 
deliberately  subverted  its  foundations  ;  monopolized  all  our 

E 


98  PALLIATION     AND    PEECEUENT. 

funds  aiul  property  ;  and  called  it  the  "  reform"  of  the 
Church  I  Some  acquiesced  on  the  saving  principles,  "  it  can 
not  now  be  helped,  we  must  make  the  best  of  it,  though  it 
is  an  unhappy  precedent."  Yes,  rather  unhappy  !  Their 
favorite  palliative  word  is  "  extra-constitutional."  This  they 
concede — and  we  thank  them  not  for  it.  It  is  a  word  true 
— as  far  as  it  goes  ;  but  it  goes  not  half  as  far  as  it  ought. 
It  is  a  mere  plaster  of  irritating  palliations.  Their  deed  was 
furtive  revolution,  under  the  pseudology  of  "reforming"  the 
Church  of  God.  As  I  do  not  believe  in  the  expediency  of 
sin,  I  characterize  the  crime  according  to  its  nature  ;  and 
refer  it  to  God,  for  his  decision  on  the  case,  with  calm  con- 
sciousness of  his  holy  and  true  impartiality.  Our  brethren, 
who  did  this  wickedness,  may  call  it  by  what  soft  names 
they  please.  Its  proper  amaritude  shall  yet  corrode  their 
souls.  They  must  yet  be  both  sorry  and  ashamed  in  the  rec- 
ollections of  it  I  What  think  you,  doctor,  of  such  a  ruse, 
makhig  such  a  precedent  ?  "Whaj;  has  been,  and  what  is  rat- 
ified as  their  "  basis,"  as  they  call  it,  may  be  again.  Rather 
perilous,  as,  worse  than  the  sword  of  Damocles,  pendent  over 
them,  it  defines  all  their  security,  and  it  caricatures  their 
boast  of  liberty,  as  it  demonstrates  that  Constitutions  are 
weaker  than  crises,  with  juvenile  patriarchs  to  make  and  to 
rule  them  I 

2.  I  confess  it  is  strange  what  necessity  they  could  imag- 
ine great  enough  to  warrant  such  revolutionary  measures. 
But  did  they  not  badly  accuse  the  orthodoxy  of  their  oppo- 
nents ? 

1.  There  have  always  been  two  sides,  or  two  parties,  in 
our  Presbyterian  Church  ;  and  it  is  so  very  much  in  all  oth- 
ers. In  the  last  century,  they  made  the  famous  schism  of 
seventeen  years,  from  1741  to  1758,  when  they  reunited, 
with  tears,  and  promises,  and  hopes  of  perpetual  harmony 
and  union.  They  felt  how  foolish  they  had  been  in  magni- 
fying the  trifles  of  their  dis.seiision,  in  the  laud  of  their  vwm- 


NO    CHIEF    ERROR    IN    OUR    RANKS.  99 

mies,  against  the  fundamentals  of  their  common  faith,  and 
duty,  and  interest.  It  Avas  then  the  old  side  and  the  new 
side,  the  old  lights  and  the  new  lights  ;  more  learning  in  the 
ministry — with  piety  at  a  comparative  discount,  or  more  pi- 
ety in  the  ministry — with  learning  at  a  comparative  discount. 
On  the  new  and  the  pious  side  were  Princeton,  with  Pres- 
ident Edwards  and  Whitfield  —  but  now,  how  changed  I 
Tempora  mutantur,  et  nos  nmtamtir  hi  illis. 

As  to  orthodoxy,  we  quite  as  sincerely  accused  them  of 
propinquity  to  Antinomianism  and  Fatalism,  as  they  us  of 
deviation  toward  Pelagianism  and  Arminianism.  But,  my 
dear  sir,  our  differences  were  not  like  some  of  yours  :  we  were 
none  of  us  Socinian,  or  Arian,  or  Sabellian,  or  Universalist, 
or  Neonomian,  or  Erastian.  No  I  in  contradistinction  to  all 
these  themes  or  symbols  of  mortal  or  insidious  error,  we  were 
all  generic  Calvinists  ;  we  all,  like  yourselves,  professed, 
with  credible  sincerity,  "  solemnly  to  receive  and  adopt"  the 
same  Westminster  "  Confession  of  Faith,  as  containing  the 
system  of  doctrine  taught  in  the  Holy  Scriptures." 

2.  Miserable  business  this  !  It  seems  to  me  that  a  little 
wisdom  and  forbearance  might  have  prevented  the  schism. 

1 .  Certainly  it  might — si  mens  non  IcBvafuisset !  But  the 
fiercest  in  the  war,  or  behind  the  scenes,  were  impracticable 
and  inexperienced,  as  well  as  comparatively  young  ecclesias- 
tics. The  chief  driver  had  not  been  ordained  five  years  ;  and 
some  that  spirited  him  onward  had  never  been  pastors,  but 
belonged  to  the  knowing  corps  of  amateur  clergy  ;  specula- 
tive, theoretical,  scholastic,  and  ever  boastful  of  their  Avhole- 
sale  orthodoxy.  Still,  I  say  of  all,  that  our  errors  were  not 
as  bad  as  some  of  yours — I  mean  of  your  whole  ministry  pre- 
vious to  the  disruption  here. 

2.  We  have  had  some  wasteful  errorists  among  us,  we 
must  own. 

1 .  The  heretical  comprehensions  of  the  Scotch  establish- 
ment, and  the  abominable  intemperance  of  too  many  of  their 


100        FORBEARANCE ORDER  OF  DECREES. 

clergy,  previous  to  the  disrujUion,  were  really  tremendous — 
if  I  may  credit  what  some  of  your  intelligent  and  worthy 
ministers  here  have  told  me,  as  what  they  personally  knew. 
We  never  had  such  error  in  our  ranks — except  possibly  in  a 
solitary  instance,  one  or  two,  far  apart,  and  where  amputa- 
tion followed,  as  soon  as  the  morbus  of  the  diseased  member 
was  juridically  ascertained.  But  among  your  Moderationists 
there  are  fundamental  heretics,  as  I  learn,  with  sentiments 
subversive  of  the  whole  system  of  redemption  by  grace  ;  and 
whom,  should  such  occur  within  the  closures  of  our  Church, 
a  unanimous  vote  would  depose  and  excommunicate,  as  soon 
as  fairly  tried,  in  any  of  our  judicatories.  But  there  was  no 
error  among  us  on  the  subject  of  the  triune  nature  of  God  ; 
on  the  glorious  fact  of  atonement ;  on  the  godhead,  or  the 
manhood,  of  the  Savior  ;  on  the  actual  depravity  and  the  lost 
estate  of  all  the  sons  of  Adam  ;  on  the  si7ie  qua  non  need  of 
regeneration  ;  on  the  conservation  of  the  saints  ;  or  on  the 
grand  characteristics,  and  the  proper  fundamentals,  of  "  the 
system  of  doctrine  taught  in  the  Holy  Scriptures."  This  is 
truth  ! 

2.  It  seems  to  me  that  a  little  brotherly  forbearance  was 
the  grand  desideratum  in  your  case,  and  the  whole  misery 
and  mischief  might  have  been  prevented.     Is  it  not  so  ? 

1.  The  living  God  knows  that  it  is  I  'Qni  forbearance  was 
not  there  and  then  to  be  tolerated — the  thing  was  banished 
and  the  word  proscribed.  The  furies  that  rode  on  that  whirl- 
wind Avould  have  scowled  stormy  wrath  at  the  name  of  it. 

In  the  order  of  the  decrees,  the  order  of  their  eternal  na- 
ture and  their  temporal  development,  we  hold,  and  we  know, 
since  we  have  often  proved  it,  that  election,  as  the  grand  re- 
source of  God  against  the  suicidal  unbelief  of  man,  is  after 
atonement ;  they,  that  atonement  is  after  election  ;  and  so,  as 
a  consequence,  they  say,  was  it  made,  and  it  exists,  as  atone- 
ment, all  for  the  elect  alone.  They  also  denounced  our  or- 
der as  preposterous  ;  and  we,  exactly  and  with  full  convic- 


MORAL    GOVERNMENT    OF    GOD.  101 

tion,  cordially  returned  the  compliment,  with  some  thunder 
of  logic  and  lightning  of  Scripture  discharged — which  occa- 
sionally struck,  as  well  as  boomed,  in  the  argument.  We 
honored  moral  government  more,  much  more,  than  they,  who 
almost  exclude  it  from  their  Turkish  theology — who  seemed, 
like  Antinomians,  often  to  dislike  the  word,  and  to  reject  the 
phrase,  and  to  vacate  the  thing,  and  to  hate  the  very  term- 
inology of  the  thing  !  We  showed  that  without  moral  gov- 
ernment there  could  be  no  atonement ;  since  then,  law  is 
nothing,  sin  nothing,  pardon  nothing,  regeneration  nothing, 
piety  nothing,  preaching  nothing,  and  the  gospel  nothing  ; 
and  that  atonement  was  a  grand  governmental  transac- 
tion— an  awkward  expression,  as  they  termed  it,  and  one 
which  they  specially  nauseated — in  which  all  the  proper,  and 
wise,  and  benevolent  ends  of  punishment  were  superabund- 
antly and  gloriously  answered  by  a  substituted  suffering 
on  the  cross,  as  well  as  a  substituted  sufferer  there  ;  dy- 
ing, the  just  for  the  unjust,  that  he  might  bring  us  to  God. 
Hence  we  showed  that  the  whole  world  might  be  saved, 
John  3  :  17.  if  they  would  only,  as  God  requires  them,  obey 
the  gospel ;  that,  when  they  refuse,  all  with  one  accord  be- 
gin to  make  excuse,  and  so  make  light  of  it,  God  has  his 
own  sublime  resource,  and  Christ  his  own  prorhised  reward, 
in  spite  of  them.  John  6  :  36-40.  Election  now  occurs  in 
sovereignty  sublime  ;  but  even  election  is  not  exclusive.  It 
is  only  inclusive,  and  so,  magnificently,  facilitating  salvation 
to  all  reasonable  men.  Election  shuts  not  the  door — recalls 
not  the  invitation — changes  not  the  commandment — throws 
no  stumbling-block,  or  snare,  or  impediment  in  the  open  way 
— proves  that  way  practicable  and  desirable,  by  living  exam- 
ples— rebukes  not  the  bride,  saying,  come,  nor  silences  or 
sinks,  but  only  emphasizes,  the  voice  of  the  Spirit,  saying, 
COME.  Election  demonstrates  the  earnestness  of  God  ;  his 
sincerity,  his  plan,  his  forecast,  his  eternal  wisdom,  his  vic- 
tory, his  glory  ;  man  by  sin  makes  the  necessity  of  it  ;   and  it 


102  LLECTJON    DOES    NO     MISCHIEF. 

also  shows,  Avhat  sordid  selfishness  alone  misunderstands  it 
and  dislikes  it,  that  we  are  dependent  on  God — not  he  on  us; 
that  heaven  will  be  populous,  even  if  we,  our  blessed  selves, 
are  not  there,  but  rather  decline  to  be  of  its  population  ;  that 
the  cause  of  God,  and  virtue  and  salvation  in  the  earth,  is  no 
failure,  and  never  will  be  one  ;  that  we  can  easily,  by  our 
meanness,  frustrate  ourselves,  but  not  him ;  that  election 
keeps  no  man  from  heaven,  or  from  piety  and  salvation — but 
only  makes  more  definite  and  powerful  our  motives  and  fa- 
cilities promptly  to  go,  and  really  takes  thither  all  the  will- 
ing multitudes,  and  all  the  obeying  millions,  that  ever  get 
there  ;  that  election  in  its  place  sheds  glory  and  virtue  on  all 
the  revealed  system,  and  permeates  eternity  with  its  blessed 
radiations  and  entailments.  On  the  other  hand,  Ave  believe 
of  their  side,  that  their  order  is  frigid  and  Antinomian ;  that 
it  is  fitting  more  for  politics  and  Jesuitry,  than  moral  govern- 
ment and  the  true  glories  of  the  grand  mediatorial  system ; 
that  it  makes  the  obstructions  and  the  objections  that  it  finds  ; 
that  they  can  not  preach  it,  pray  it,  or  read  it  in  the  Bible  ; 
that  it  is  no  friend  to  the  flight  of  the  angel  of  missions ;  that 
it  is  starved,  cramped,  collapsing,  and  soon  to  be  a  buried 
mummy  in  the  tomb  of  the  Capulets,  for  the  resurrection  of 
doom,  or  for  no  resurrection  at  all. 

Still,  in  that  controversy,  as  in  most  others,  the  passions 
were  enlisted  ;  reason  and  long-suflbring  were  ostracized  from 
the  scene.  There  were  faults  in  all.  On  both  sides  were 
seen  impatient  and  arbitrary  persons,  with  little  mature 
learning  or  divine  philosophy,  to  inspire  their  self-moderation, 
Heb.  5  :  13  ;  and  on  the  aggressive  side — among  the  accusers 
and  vile  vilifiers  of  their  brethren,  those  w'ho  denounced 
Beecher  and  Barnes,  and  were,  several  of  the  foremost,  not 
worthy  to  untie  the  latchet  of  the  shoe  of  either  of  those  ven- 
erable men  of  God — were  persons  of  low  and  petty  rumina- 
tions, of  contracted  and  ignominious  views,  of  disappointed 
ambition,  of  worldly  policy  and  military  command,  and  of  a 


A    HAD    WAY    VVORHi;    THAN     NO     WAY.  J  O.'J 

sort  of  rigorous  severity  of  calumniation,  by  which  their  real 
malignity  enacted  its  appropriate  orgies,  in  a  junto  that  met 
regularly,  counted  noses,  and  actually  ruled  the  assembly — 
inducing  the  eruption,  at  last,  of  their  wrathy  and  long-rum- 
bling volcano.  Some  men  have  a  wonderful  tact  and  pro- 
clivity to  do  mischief.  They  can  destroy,  if  they  can  not  build. 
As  they  could  not  culminate,  and  could  calumniate,  they 
seemed  to  prefer  this  as  second  best — and  so  became  quite  dis- 
tinguished, some  of  them  liberally  compensated,  celebrated  for 
their  wickedness,  and  made  great  men  in  the  end. 
My  answer  to  your  question,  then,  is  two-fold  : 

(1)  There  were  no  difibrences,  had  there  been  adequate 
humility  and  self-abnegation  and  brotherly-kindness,  to  call 
for  such  a  rupture,  or  even  for  any  separation  at  all — noAv  so 
great  a  scandal  to  the  nation. 

(2)  Had  those  differences  existed,  their  way  of  curing  them 
was  no  way,  or  it  was  infinitely  worse  than  none,  as  falsely 
aftecting  to  redress  them. 

To  condemn,  and  exscind,  and  cast  out,  at  one  fell  S7coop, 
without  trial,  or  warning,  or  crime,  and  without  discrimina- 
tion of  persons  or  characters,  so  many  official  peers  and  part- 
ners, regularly  constituted  i?2ier  se  jurejicrando,  in  the  com- 
munion of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  in  our  solemnly  cove- 
nanted religious  commonwealth,  more  than  one  fifth  of  the 
whole,  this  they  did — oh  I  wickedness,  black  and  horrible  I 
iii.  John,  9-11.  How  will  it  look  at  the  judgment-seat  of 
Christ  ?  Doth  our  laxo  jtidge  any  man  before  it  hear  him, 
and  know  xohat  he  doeth  ?  No  I  And  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim 
never  enacted  such  wickedness,  except  in  condemning  Christ, 
so  far  as  we  can  credibly  learn  from  their  general  annals  and 
traditions.  It  was  rare  and  astonishing  ■\\acKEDNESS  I  I 
affirm  it  as  knowing  who  sees  me.  It  is  precisely  incapable 
of  justification,  or  even  of  decent  and  honest  apology.  It  was 
a  wonderful  instance  of  7iovum  et  inauditum  nefas,  a  min- 
istris  Dei  confectum  in  ministros  et  ecclesias  Dei. 


w 


104  DorriUNAL  uifkkrences. 

2.  And  has  your  alienation  now  become  personal  and  im- 
placable ? 

1 .  Only  with  some  of  the  reckless  and  the  pre-eminent 
butchers  in  the  war,  and  their  sympathizers  since.  Some  of 
them  call  it  a  revolution,  and  on  that  basis  alone  venture  to 
try  to  defend  it.  Many  worthy  and  excellent  fathers  and 
brethren,  ministerial,  and  especially  laical,  like  Joseph  in  the 
General  Assembly  at  Jerusalem,  never  consented  to  the  coun- 
sel and  deed  of  them ;  many  are  discontented  and  unhappy 
in  their  present  positions,  because  of  it ;  many  of  them  cease 
not  to  condemn  and  deplore  it  sincerely,  if  not  consistently, 
to  this  day  ;  many  arc  my  owni  personal  friends,  whom  dear- 
ly I  esteem,  and  cordially  and  fraternally  I  love,  and  whose 
feelings  I  would  not  intentionally  wound — nor  yet  be  insipid, 
or  ambiguous,  or  uncommitted,  ad  justitiam  demonstran- 
dam  et  tindicandam,  ut  oportet. 

Some  facts  of  personal  history  and  strange  contrariety  of 
development  I  could  narrate,  to  your  astonishment — but  I 
forbear  I  God  is  overruling  it,  as  he  does  every  thing,  for  his 
own  glory  and  the  ultimate  good  of  his  elect :  He  overruled 
in  this  way  the  murder  of  his  Son,  Jesus  Christ,  our  ever- 
blessed  Lord  and  Savior  ;  but  all  this  is  no  more  an  excuse, 
you  know,  for  the  juvenile  patriarchs  at  Philadelphia,  than 
for  those  senile  or  full-grown  ones,  the  chieftain  murderers  of 
the  Son  of  God  at  Jerusalem. 

2.  In  respect  to  your  doctrinal  divergences,  I  should  like 
to  have  from  you  a  synopsis  of  them ;  as  these  chiefly  inter- 
est us  in  Scotland,  and,  indeed,  in  all  parts  of  the  Church 
universal. 

1.  They  respect,  as  I  have  said,  chiefly  the  type  of  our 
Calvinism  ;  the  philosophy  of  religion,  rather  than  its  great 
facts  ;  and  the  correct  technical  discriminations  of  theological 
wisdom,  which  become  the  pulpit  and  its  inculcations,  espe- 
cially in  our  age  and  country.  Americans  demand  a  reason 
for  eveiy  thing — mere  human  "  authority"  will  not  exactly 
suit  them. 


PRINCETON    THEOLOGY.  105 

• 

What  they  held  it  were  difficult  to  say — because  specu- 
latively they  differed  inter  se  quite  as  much  as  we  did,  or 
possibly  much  more ;  but  if  we  take  the  Princeton  type  as 
normal  in  their  theology,  as  probably  we  ought,  then  I  can 
state  an  honest  syllabus  of  the  views  they  hold  there,  and 
sometimes  elegantly  hide,  as  their  piety,  and  tact,  and  learn- 
ing in  combination  know  how,  beneath  a  costume  of  scholas- 
tic and  rhetorical  speciousness,  which  effectually  prevents  the 
common  people,  to  this  day,  from  a  correct  estimation  of  their 
system.  And  were  it  not  so,  they  could,  with  their  dogmas, 
be  scarcely  endured.     They  strenuously  hold — 

(1)  The  absolute,  not  mediate,  imputation  of  the  sin  of 
Adam  to  all  his  posterity;  so  that  each  of  them  justly  de- 
serves eternal  damnation,  absolutely,  on  that  account  simply 
and  alone,  and  whether,  in  fact,  any  one  is  finally  saved  or 
lost. 

(2)  In  the  order  of  the  decrees,  election  precedes  atone- 
ment, and  hence  Christ  died  for  the  elect  alone;  so  that,  how- 
ever redundant  in  intrinsic  value  may  be  the  price  paid  for 
them  alone,  yet  the  atonement,  as  such,  proper  and  real,  is 
limited,  not  to  the  price,  but  to  the  moral  purchase  ;  and  for 
the  others,  the  non-elect,  whatever  else  there  may  be  for 
them,  incidentally  or  otherwise,  there  is  no  atonement  at  all, 
or  any  other  preparation  or  provision,  actual  or  possible,  in 
the  system  or  in  the  universe,  for  their  salvation. 

(3)  We  are  all  passive,  only  and  entirely,  in  regeneration. 

(4)  Men,  in  their  present  lapsed  state,  are  free  only  to  sin  ; 
and  they  have  no  ability  to  do  their  duty,  neither  physical, 
nor  moral,  nor  social ;  nor  ability  of  any  other  kind  have  they 
as  moral  agents  ;  that  is,  if  they  be  moral  agents  at  all — be- 
fore they  are,  by  miracle,  passively  regenerated  I 

In  general,  they  avoid  all  popular  statements  that  are  at 
once  as  full  and  as  honest  as  this  ;  but  they  hold  this  really, 
I  am  sure,  however  they  may  thank  me,  or  otherwise,  for  the 
declaration  of  the  fact. 

E  2 


106  PRINCETON    TH EULOGY. 

The  question  here  about  regeneration  is  truly  metaphysical 
— but  it  is  also,  and  in  a  high  degree,  practical.     It  ought, 
therefore,  in  the  theology  especially  of  every  preacher,  to  have 
a  thorough  eclaircissement.     He  ought  to  understand  it.     Re- 
generation is  properly  no  miracle,  though  supernatural,  or  su- 
perhuman and  divine,  and  so  really  superior  to  a  miracle. 
This  is  wrought  in  order  to  that  ;  this  the  means,  that  the 
end.      A  miracle  is  done  to  us  only,  and  ordinarily  requires 
no  concurrence  or  activity  of  ours  in  its  production  or  to  its 
perfect  eventuation.     The  cripple  at  Lystra,  indeed,  leaped 
and  ivalkcd.  Acts  14  :  10.     But  this  was  after  the  miracle, 
which  was  perfect  before  it  by  the  mere  fiat  of  God  ;  and  his 
active  exultation  only  followed  and  proved  the  reality.     But 
is  regeneration  in  the  same  predicament  ?     We  are  passive 
in  election,  in  justification,  in  adoption,  and  in  creation  ;  since 
eacla  of  these  depends  alone  on  the  volition  of  God,  and  re- 
quires no  active  and  voluntary  concurrence  of  ours  in  his  act. 
But  can  a  man  be  regenerated  till  he  loves  God  ?     And  is 
he  passive  in  loving  him  ?     Does  God  something,  and  if  so 
— WHAT,  to  the  soul,  which  constitutes  regeneration,  before 
that  soul  ceases  to  do  evil  and  learns  to  do  Avell  ?     Let  man 
or  angel  answer,  if  he  can  !     Does  not  regeneration,  then,  re- 
quire our  concurrence  in  it,  absolutely,  in  order  to  its  exist- 
ence ?  and  if  so,  what  is  this  but  our  activity  ?     And  so  in 
the  whole  process  of  sanctifi.cation,  of  Avhich  the  beginning 
is   regeneration.      Those  stujndissimi,  who   care  more  for 
words,  forms,  and  theories,  than  for  things — their  natures  and 
their  relations,  and  who  hold  the  passivity  of  the  subject  in 
regeneration,  show  its  numbing  eli'ects  in  the  paralysis  of 
their  own  ministrations,  in  their  actions,  in  their  failures,  and 
in  the  marked  frigidity  of  their  characters.     They  wait  for 
the  miracle,  which  they  so  much  need,  and  it  never  comes. 
The  heathenish  spell  of  fate  creeps  over  them.     Their  peo- 
ple, in  the  mean  time,  get  hardened,  incrusted  with  habitu- 
ated sloth,  deadened  in  their  distance  from  God  :  and   are 


ALL  OBEY  NOT  THE  GOSPEL.  107 

quite  too  orthodox  to  seek  the  Lord  while  he  may  be  found, 
lest  they  should  interfere  with  their  own  proper  passivity  and 
with  his  OAvn  appropriate  work  I  Hence  their  earnest  seek- 
ing they  often  postpone,  we  fear,  till  it  comes  in  spasm  and  in 
paroxysm,  when  God  can  not  be  found — ^when  it  is  too  late 
forever  !  Prov.  1  :  20-33  ;  Luke,  13  :  24-30  ;  Mat.  7  :  21-23. 
Such  passivity  is  not  taught  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  John, 
1  :  11-13,  Born  should  be  (from  yevvaw)  rendered  begotten 
always.      God  is  our  father — not  mother  I 

2.  Is  there  no  danger  that  your  views  of  full  atonement 
may  lead  to  Universalism,  and  do  they  not  apprehend  such 
a  tendency  ? 

1,  I  may  not  say — it  certainly  leads  to  independent  thought, 
and  that  is  very  suspectable  in  their  conservative  assump- 
tions. But  they  are  with  their  theology  forever  in  a  mist, 
possibly  "  a  Scotch  mist,"  about  the  nature  of  salvation  as 
actually  ofiered  to  men  in  the  gospel.  Is  there  an  offer  of 
that  to  men,  or  to  some  men,  or  to  one  man,  which,  rela- 
tively to  each  of  such,  or  of  his  class,  as  non-elect,  has  no  ex- 
istence ?  Go  preach  the  gosjyel  to  every  creature — hi  all 
the  world  ?  Does  this  lead  to  universal  salvation  ?  Does  it 
imply  any  danger  that  men  will  be  saved  by  the  gospel — 
without  obeying  it  ?  or  that  the  non-elect  will  obey  it  ?  or 
that,  if  they  should — though  we  all  know  they  will  not,  any 
damage  woixld  accrue,  or  God  have  any  objection  ? 

Some  say  to  us,  well,  where  the  difference,  since  it  all 
comes  to  the  same  thing  at  last  ?  Answer,  Is  it  no  differ- 
ence whether  or  not  God  is  sincere  and  veracious  in  the 
fact  of  his  offered  mercy  ?  Blind  and  stupid  is  the  mind 
that  can  see  no  difference  between  honesty  and  dishonesty  ! 
between  right  and  wrong,  and  this  where  the  actions  of  God 
are  alone  concerned.  The  difference  is,  that,  if  God  could 
lie,  the  whole  universe  were  one  eternal  desolation,  and 
heaven  an  impossibility.  I  shoiild  not  have  taken  notice  of 
this  most  contemptible  allegation,  had  it  not  on  several  oc- 


108  LIMITARIAX    DOTAr.E. 

casions  been  polemically  addressed  to  me  ;  once  by  a  selfish 
old  theologue,  or,  rather,  theologaster,  who,  in  a  bad  way,  I 
fear,  loved  himself,  and  mainly  nothing  else.  Some  of  them 
have  60  represented  it,  as  if  really  God  ofl'ers  salvation  to  no 
mortal  in  the  gospel !  One  of  them,  at  his  ordination,  7ne 
teste,  told  the  Presbytery  that  olFer  was  an  Arminian  idea ; 
that  there  was  no  such  thing  in  the  gospel.  And  he  proved 
it  too,  in  his  way  ;  why,  said  he,  there  is  no  need  of  it  to  the 
elect,  for  they  have  it  already  ;  they  have  the  reality,  and 
the  ofier  to  them  were  superfluous.  And  as  to  the  non-elect, 
there  is  no  ofl'er  to  them  ;  and  for  two  reasons  :  ( 1 )  It  would 
do  them  no  good  if  there  were  ;  for  they  are  unable  to  accept 
it.  They  have  no  ability,  more  than  the  dead  in  their  sep- 
ulchre. And  if  it  could  do  them  no  good,  it  were  a  very 
vanity,  too,  to  ofl'er  it  to  them,  and  the  doctrine  of  such  an 
ofier  is  false  and  silly.  Besides,  (2)  They  have  no  ofier — for 
another  good  reason.  Offer?  of  what  ?  of  salvation  or  atone- 
ment ?  There  is  none  for  them !  there  never  was  any,  there 
never  will  be  any. 

Hence  there  is  no  offer  at  all — only  doctrinal  statements, 
only  the  privilege  of  hearing  such  Solomons  enunciate  to  them, 
or  to  others  in  their  presence,  the  arbitrary  connection  that 
there  is  between  faith  and  grace — between  passive  regener- 
ation and  passive  salvation  I  all  the  elect,  in  his  mongrel  the- 
osophy,  being  quasi  a  kind  of  substantive  verbs,  each  in  the 
passive  voice,  pluperfect  tense,  third  person  plural,  and  neuter 
gender  I  But,  deserving  of  ridicule  as  well  as  execration,  as 
is  this  direful  stupidity,  that  confounds  the  eternal  difference 
between  physical  and  ethical,  between  matter  and  mind,  be- 
tween mechanical  powers  and  moral  government,  and  that 
sees  the  dynamics  and  the  statics  of  the  universe  only  in  the 
worse  chaos  of  its  own  confusions,  I  would  say — how  little 
its  disciples  properly  know  of  the  holy  scriptures !  or  of  the 
way  in  which  t}(£se  are  able  to  make  us  wise  to  salvation, 
through  faith  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus. 


VIEVVH    OK    TKCTH    I\'     REALITY.  109 

But  we  affirm,  and  demonstrate,  and  know,  and  preach, 

(1)  That  God  offers  the  gospel,  in  its  due  ministration,  to 
every  hearer. 

(2)  That  the  offer  is  no  nuUity  ;  no  insult  to  their  weak- 
ness and  their  ruin  ;  no  equivoque  or  ambiguity  ;  but  made 
to  them  with  infinite  sincerity  and  perfect  consistency  by  God 
himself,  and  by  his  own  order  in  the  gospel. 

(3)  That  the  atonement  proper,  or  the  mission  and  the  pas- 
sion of  the  Son  of  God,  is  always  the  normal,  and  the  neces- 
sary, and  the  only  basis  of  this  offer. 

(4)  That  the  atonement  is,  therefore,  not  limited  at  all,  or 
properly  capable  of  limitation  ;  though  ultimately  its  applica- 
tion is  limited  to  the  elect  alone,  or  all  the  finally  redeemed. 

(5)  That  men  are  all  obligated,  as  their  supreme  duty,  to  7-e- 
petit  and  believe  the  go?,'pel ;  so  that  the  sin  oi  neglecting  so 
great  salvation  is  perfectly  paramount,  and  just  infinitely 
tremendous  and  perilous. 

(6)  That  they  have  full  natural  ability  to  do  this,  and  are 
therefore  wholly  blamable  for  its  omission ;  their  only  ina- 
bility being  moral,  not  physical,  that  is,  not  organic  or  neces- 
sitating, but  voluntary,  so  that  themselves  make  it,  and  main- 
tain it,  and  are  the  architects  of  their  own  despair,  as  they 
perish  from  the  xcay,  and  are  so  forever  punished  for  their 
sins. 

(7)  That  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  is  not  to  make  men  ac- 
countable ;  men  are  such,  in  the  very  nature  and  the  very 
structure  of  their  moral  being  :  they  are  such  as  creatures 
under  law,  absolutely,  universally,  necessarily.  But  it  is 
needful  to  remove  the  moral  obstacles  which  our  own  sin 
and  folly  put  in  our  way ;  so  that  the  Spirit  enlightens,  con- 
vinces, effectually  persuades,  and  actuates  us  in  duty ;  so  that 
we  do  it,  and  obey  the  gospel,  and  are  saved  by  the  grace  of 
God  in  Christ  Jesus. 

(8)  That,  as  to  freedom,  man's  moral  actions  are  voluntary, 
and  therefore  free.     If  he  sins  voluntarily  against  all  the  per- 


110  calvin's  last  will  and  testament. 

suasion  and  authority  of  God,  and  is  under  no  necessity  to  sin, 
except  what  he  makes  by  his  own  preference  and  voluntary 
agency,  why  is  he  not  free,  as  well  as  criminal  in  it  ?  And 
to  what  does  the  opposite  view  tend  but  to  excuse  the  foot- 
stool and  criminate  the  throne  ?  Besides,  intellectually,  it  is 
indiscriminate  and  stupid. 

2.  But  is  your  view  Calvinistic  ? 

1.  Yes,  is  our  answer — if  Calvinism  it  is  to  beUeve  with 
Calvin  in  his  maturer  thoughts  and  works.  His  noble  In- 
stitutes, which  we  admire,  and  love,  and  for  the  most  part, 
or  in  the  main,  we  adopt,  were  written  in  his  comparative 
youth  ;  but  his  Commentaries,  his  latter  epistles,  and  his  last 
will  and  testament,*  were  the  ripened  fruits  of  his  older  and 

*  This  great  and  renowned  Reformer,  this  mighty  man  of  Christ, 
this  leader  of  modern  commentators  on  the  word  of  inspiration,  was 
as  correctly  illuminated  and  as  profoundly  humble  before  God,  in  view 
of  his  sins,  as  he  was  incomparably  eminent  and  honored  among  men, 
in  consideration  of  his  powers,  his  attainments,  and  his  deeds  of  en- 
during usefulness.  His  last  will  and  testament,  as  found  appended  to 
Beza's  Life  of  Calvin,  and  as  dictated,  just  before  he  died,  to  Peter 
Chenalat,  the  Genevese  notary,  contains  many  solemn  and  excellent 
sentiments,  splendidly  appropriate  to  the  moral  sublimity  of  such  a 
scene  ;  among  others,  this  : 

I  also  testify  and  confess  that  with  humble  supplication  I  beseech 
God  that  he  would  in  sovereign  mercy  cause  me  to  be  washed  and 
cleansed  by  the  blood  of  that  great  Redeemer  who  shed  his  blood  for 
the  sins  of  the  human  race,  that  to  me  it  may  be  vouchsafed,  before 
his  own  tribunal,  to  stand  at  last  [beautified  and  beatified]  in  the  im- 
age of  the  Redeemer  himself 

Thus  spoke  the  dying  saint,  the  living  and  immortal  martyr  of  Je- 
sus.    These  are  his  words  : 

Testor  etiam  ac  profiteer  me  suppliciter  ab  eo  petere,  ut  ita  me  ab- 
lutum  et  mundatum  velit  sanguine  summi  illius  Redemptoris,  effuso 
PRO  HUMANi  GENERIS  pEccATis,  ut  mihi  liccat,  apud  tribunal  ipsius,  con- 
sistere  sub  ipsius  Redemptoris  imagine. 

The  whole  document  deserves  to  be  translated  and  studied,  as  so 
solemn,  so  luminous,  so  sublime,  at  such  a  moment,  "  quite  in  the 
verge  of  heaven" — "fly,  ye  profane  !" 


HIS    VIEWS    OF    ATONEMENT.  Ill 

richer  piety ;  and  they  state  our  views,  especially  on  the  great 
subject  of  atonement,  which  is  quite  cardinal  in  our  Amer- 
ican controversy. 

2.  I  have  no  recollection  of  Calvin  teaching  that  the  atone- 
ment was  made  for  all  men,  in  any  of  his  writings. 

1.  Possibly  then,  dear  sir,  repressing  my  surprise,  I  can 
amuse  you,  at  least,  by  quoting  his  ipsisswia  in  the  original : 
Communem  omnium  gratiam  f'acit  apostolus,  quia  omnibus 
exposita  est,  non  quod  ad  omnes  extendatur  re  ipsa :  nam- 
etsi  passus  est  Christus  pro  peccatis  totius  mundi,  atque  om- 
nibus indifierenter  Dei  benignitate  offertur,  non  tamen  omnes 
apprehendunt. 

2.  Are  they  the  words  ?  Indeed  !  Where  does  Calvin 
say  that  ? 

1.  I  am  happy  to  tell  you  exactly.  Have  you  his  Opera 
Omnia  at  hand  ? 

2.  No,  I  have  not  that  great  work  in  my  study,  though  it 
may  seem  strange  to  you. 

1.  Indeed  it  does,  since  it  has  long  been  in  mine  ;  and  of 
all  human  thesauruses  of  theological  wisdom,  I  prize  it  as 
chief.  I  have  it  in  nine  volumes  folio,  done  in  vellum,  the 
edition  of  1671,  Amstelodami,  apud  viduam  Johannis  Jacobi 
Schipperi ;  and  must  be  allowed  to  wonder  that  your  library 
should  not  contain  it. 

2.  "Well,  let  me  hear  where  it  is  to  be  found,  for  I  will  see 
it  there  before  I  quit ;  for  novel  is  the  specimen  to  me,  I 
own. 

1 .  Yes,  there  are  several  others  there ;   and  all  of  them 

The  large  expression  about  the  blood  of  Christ  will  not  admit  of 
construction,  according  to  the  restrictive  sentiments,  which  have  done 
so  much  mischief  to  the  souls  of  men  ;  in  view  of  what  he  says  on 
the  subject  in  other  places,  with  such  amplification  and  exphcitness. 
Shame  to  you,  ye  preachers  of  no  offer,  or  one  that  is  worse  than 
none,  to  men,  in  the  glorious  gospel  of  the  blessed  God.     But  we  h.*.ve 

SEEN,   AND    DO    TESTIFY    TH.KT   THE    FaTHER    SENT   THE    SoN   TO    BE    THE 

Savior  of  the  world. 


112  HIS    COMAlENTAKIEri    ON    ROMANS. 

identified  and  compared,  one  finds  the  fact  that  I  assert  per* 
I'ectly  sustained  by  him.  It  is  even  asserted  often,  and  im- 
plied more  frequently. 

2.  Let  me  have  the  place,  then,  if  you  can  recollect  it. 

1.  I  know  it  happily  and  well.  You  will  find  it  in  his 
comments  on  Rom.  5  :  18.=* 

2.  Wait,  then,  till  I  examine.  I  have  an  old  Scotch  trans- 
lation of  Calvin  on  Romans;  and  could  I  just  lay  hand  on  it, 
I  would  see  how  he  renders  it. 

He  here  took  a  step-ladder,  moved  it  to  a  distant  part  of 
his  study,  rose  to  the  top  shelf,  and  after  some  search  found 
the  book,  opened  and  read  the  passage,  and  resumed  : 

You  are  right,  I  see.  But  really  the  fact  never  reached 
me  before,  as  I  must  plainly  own.f 

1.  It  is  my  own  opinion,  dear  sir,  that  the  point  is  both 
cardinal,  and  too  commonly  and  almost  every  where  little 

*  Other  passages  in  his  commentaries  ought  to  be  compared ;  as 
Mat.  26  :  28  ;  ii.  Pet.  2:1;  i.  John,  2:2,  et  alia. 

t  I  admired  the  excellent  simplicity  of  his  character,  so  conspicu- 
ous in  this  and  many  other  occurrences  ;  it  seemed  so  child-like,  that 
one  must  view  it  as  equally  rare,  and  beautiful,  and  worthy.  How 
many  specimens  of  greatness  of  other  sorts,  assumptive,  strutting, 
majestically  unnatural,  too  perpendicular  to  bend,  too  great — by  spe- 
cial wisdom  and  dignity,  that  is,  by  inflation  and  false  consequence 
— too  great  to  condescend,  from  their  airy  altitude,  to  bless  the  mem- 
bers of  Christ,  or  perform  their  proper  duties,  or  evince  the  temper 
of  the  Gospel ;  how  many  a  vapid  exhibition  of  self,  ostentatious  and 
official,  self-sublime,  have  we  seen,  and  grieved  to  see,  teste  Deo,  in 
titled  and  renowned  examples,  from  whom  we  were  so  simple  as  to 
expect  better  things — and  seen  them,  with  wounds  heartfelt  and  in- 
genuous, when  and  where  we  had  no  thought  to  see  or  feel  them ; 
and  much  the  same,  alas !  through  pride,  sin,  folly,  not  to  speak  of 
ignorance  and  ill  breeding,  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean  !  I  suspect 
such  samples  existed  before  the  flood — not  before  the  fall !  ♦  *  ♦ 
As  to  the  replies  and  quotations  made,  I  have  stated  facts,  and  was 
happy  that,  in  some  respects,  my  memory  served  me,  rather  signally, 
in  those  very  relations,  in  which  his  interrogations  were  at  once  more 
particular,  as  well  as  more  earnest  or  vehement.  "  Whar  dos  Colvun 
sai  thot  ?" 


OL'R3    AND    THEIR    DISRUPTION.  113 

appreciated  in  our  theology,  and  that  this  is  the  reason  why 
the  pulpit  is  often  poorly  cfl'ulgent,  or  powerful  so  much  in 
vain  1  The  atonement  is  not  understood,  or  elucidated,  or 
impressed  on  the  minds  of  men,  as  it  might  and  would  be 
if  views  more  discriminating  and  definite,  more  rich  and  large, 
obtained  respecting  it — that  is,  if  we  all  comprehended  it 
more  as  it  is. 

2.  Well,  is  there  no  hope  of  reunion  among  you  ?  Is  there 
no  way  of  reconciliation  ?  It  is  a  bad  thing  for  the  country 
and  the  cause,  to  remain  like  brethren  at  variance  forever. 
It  is  even  bad  for  us  here  in  Scotland.  It  is  your  own  loss. 
Your  common  interests  bleed  for  it.  The  cause  of  our  Sav- 
ior suffers  —  and  there  is  no  reason  with  you,  as  there  is 
with  us,  in  the  very  organization  of  the  state  and  the  nation, 
for  your  lasting  separation.  No  great  principle  keeps  you 
apart. 

1.  None  like  yours  exactly  ;  but  we  could  never  consecrate 
their  new  "  basis,"  never  build  on  it  Avith  them,  never  I  And 
now  we  all  love  our  own  Church  with  a  generous  and  a  fra- 
ternal, as  well  as  an  increasing  and  enthusiastic  affection. 
The  attachment  of  our  ministry  and  our  people  to  the  general 
interests,  and  the  ultimate  progress  of  our  Church,  is  both 
remarkable  and  delightful,  as  well  as  waxing  greater  and 
greater  every  day.  I  beUeve,  and,  feeling  our  dependence — 
especially  my  own,  on  the  grace  and  providence  of  God,  for 
all  things,  almost  venture  to  predict,  that,  however  we  may 
meliorate  toward  each  other  in  good  and  kindly  feeling,  in 
all  acts  and  interchanges  of  pious  service  and  Christian  courte- 
sy, yet,  a  reunion  is  not  now  practicable,  even  if  it  were  de- 
sirable :  nor  do  I  think  that  at  present  there  is  any  prospect 
of  it,  or  any  promise  of  it,  in  the  future — at  least  in  the  pres- 
ent world  I 

2.  When  you  go  back  to  America,  tell  them  from  me  that 
this  is  the  burden  of  the  Lord  to  them,  to  forgive  and  forget 
mutually,  and  so  become  one  again,  for  the  common  cause, 


114  SMALL    HOPE    OP    REUNION. 

for  the  kingdom  of  God,  for  the  sake  of  the  love  of  Christ  con-  • 
straining  all  of  you. 

1.  I  should  rejoice  with  millions,  and  with  all  my  soul, 
could  this  be  done  ;  but  I  fear  it  is  not  to  be  expected,  at 
least  in  our  day  !  A  brother  ojfc?ided  is  harder  to  be  icon 
tJio.n  a  strong  city;  and  their  cofitentions  are  like  the  bars 
of  a  castle.  Better  is  a  neighbor  that  is  near  than  a  broth- 
er far  off.     To  me  it  seems — only  possible  with  Grod  ! 

2.  You  must  hope  for  the  best,  by  the  grace  of  God. 

1 .  They  never  confess,  that  is,  their  great  leaders — whom 
all  the  others  mainly  follow.  They  assume  the  right,  as  if 
they  were  infallible.  They  dogmatize,  ridicule,  denounce  their 
brethren,  and  never  admit  their  own  wickedness  in  the  acts 
of  excision,  Prov.  30  :  20.  They  hate,  because  they  have  in- 
jured us  ;  illustrating  the  deep  truth,  in  reference  to  depraved 
human  nature,  contained  in  the  old  adage  —  odisse  quern 
IcEseris ;  that  we  hate  whom  we  injure ;  our  morbid  moral 
instincts,  set  in  disarray  by  our  own  sins,  distress  or  lash  us 
at  every  memorial  that  reminds  us  of  them,  till  aversion  be- 
comes antipathy  and  cruelty  toward  the  passive  object  that 
occasions,  even  unconsciously  and  innocently,  the  misery  of 
our  bosoms.  Here  it  is — conscius  fadnoris  is  the  tormentor. 
They  that  were  chiefly  distinguished  as  leaders  in  the  war 
are  equally  self-accused  now,  as  quite  conspicuous  for  their 
gratuitous  and  habituated  malignity  of  soul  and  manners,  to- 
ward their  injured,  deeply  injured  brethren.  God  will  deal 
with  them  soon. 

2.  Are  they  not  called  the  Old  School,  and  you  the 
New? 

1 .  Yes ;  just  as  you  here  are  called  the  Geese,  and  they  the 
Swans,  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  in  relation  to  Mrs.  Caesar's 
North  British  Establishment.  I  repudiate  and  deny  the  nick- 
names. It  is  only  opprobrious  and  deceptive.  Our  aim  is 
not  innovation  or  revolution.  We  doctrinally  desire  nothing 
better  and  nothing  other  than  the  eternal  antiquities  of  God, 


OUR    EXCELLENT    POLITY.  115 

as  revealed  to  us  all  in  the  Bible — and  by  some  of  us  studied, 
understood,  and  enjoyed  there,  with  infinite  profiit  and  ineffa- 
ble satisfaction.  As  for  them,  they  are  the  innovators,  the 
revolutionizers,  the  layers  of  the  new  f.asis,  the  exscinders, 
and  the  arrogant  factors  of  the  schism — to  say  nothing  of  their 
proper  brand  for  monopolizing  and  retaining  all  the  funds,  and 
all  the  property,  of  the  Church,  valued  at  about  one  third  of  a 
million  of  dollars.  This  it  tfa.s — before  they  took  precarious- 
ly, with  broken  banks  to  help  them,  the  whole  charge  of  it ! 
And  as  to  our  polity,  we  are  Presbyterians,  cordial  and  de- 
vout, with  PREFERKNCE,  NOT  EXCLUSION,  for  our  sinccro  mot- 
to. As  already  said,  we  are  only  more  and  more  such,  as  we 
see  others  ruinating  for  the  want  of  our  incomparable  system 
of  constitutional  government,  so  gloriously  suited  to  the  coun- 
try ;  and,  as  some  of  us  believe,  the  best  system  of  polity  in 
the  world  !  The  monarchy  of  the  popedom,  the  oligarchy  of 
the  prelatists,  the  regime  of  Caesar  according  to  the  Eras- 
tians,  the  uproarious  and  impulsive  uncertainty  of  Congrega- 
tionalism, or,  DEMOCRACY  IN  A  KINGDOM,  or  "  Independency" 
— a  proud  and  schismatical  idea,  or  Presbytery  with  estab- 
lishment, or  Presbytery  with  the  basis  of  exscinding  prece- 
dents ;  all  these  we  decisively  postpone  and  deny,  in  prefer- 
ence for  our  own  superior  system  of  representative  common- 
wealth and  constitutional  order,  under  Christ,  in  his  own  un- 
suflering  kingdom.  But,  with  no  pleasure  in  these  recollec- 
tions, I  calmly  invoke  the  judgment  of  the  Great  HEAD  of 
the  Church,  and  wait  for  his  award. 


As  we  were  thus  in  earnest  converse,  the  signal-bell  rang 
an  alarm,  which  the  doctor  immediately  interpreted  as  "  sup- 
per," and  seemed  to  require  my  attendance  and  participation. 
It  was  late,  but  in  apparent  twilight  and  rich  moonlight,  I 
submitted,  and  followed  to  the  drawing-room,  where  the  ladies 
were  waiting  for  us,  and  especially  a  neighbor  lady,  who,  as 
I  afterward  learned,  stayed  on  purpose  to  see  an  American — a 


110  8UPPEK    AT    MORNINGSIDE. 

curiosity  quite  new  to  her  I  It  was  to  me  a  scarce  unusual 
amusement ;  and  as,  on  the  occasion,  I  thought  she  might  be 
assured  that,  being  caught  young,  I  was  quite  tame,  would 
neither  bite  nor  scratch,  and  so  might  be  safe  for  spectators, 
though  neither  caged,  nor  pinioned,  nor  chained,  nor  tended 
by  an  armed  keeper  I  She  proved,  however,  to  be  very  agree- 
able, and  seemed  evidently  gratified  with  all  the  spectacle 
as  she  viewed  it. 

Soon  an  opened  door  showed  a  briUiant  apartment,  with 
supper  spread,  and  we  were  all  motioning  or  preparing  to  ap- 
proach and  surround  it.  Among  the  bright  beauties  of  the 
scene,  however,  were  three  or  four  that  I  less  welcomed — 
these  were  so  many  decanters,  tastefully  displayed,  and  dec- 
orating the  well-stored  table.  As  I  had  become  quite  fa- 
miliar, though  I  hope  not  ofTensively  or  too  much  so,  I  viewed 
the  vinous  splendors  without  moving,  fixed  my  gaze  on  them, 
stood  in  attitude,  and  with  pantomimic  significance  indicated 

my  astonishment.     One  of  the  doctor's  daughters.  Miss , 

with  easy  and  elegant  address,  taking  my  meaning,  came  to 
me,  and  in  an  undertone,  kind  and  familiar,  yet  playful,  and 
rather  pleasantly  satirical,  remarked  :  "  Oh  !  do  not  allow 
yourself  to  be  so  scared.  The  best  wines,  you  know,  are  the 
least  intoxicating  and  the  most  nutritious,  as  the  old  poets 
say.  Ours  is  old,  genuine,  rich,  and  good  ;  better  than  any 
you  find  and  censure  so  justly  in  America.  We  never  let  the 
superior  brands  go  across  the  Atlantic,  and  you  never  tasted 
any  so  good  as  ours.  Now  you  shall  prove  them  youi'self.  I 
will  tell  you  which,  and  present  it  to  you  ;  and,  besides,  when 
you  take  it,  we'll  all  keep  the  secret.  For  one,  I'll  never  tell 
of  it,  only  you  must  try  it,  and  see  if  it  be  not  truth  that  I  say 
to  you." 

I  replied — Tempters  all  of  you.  Eve  and  her  daughters  I 
But,  as  to  your  keeping  the  secret,  I  think  I  can  trust  you  for 

once,  my  dear  Miss .      You  will  never  tell  of  me,  I  am 

sure.     But  you  lovely  lasses,  that  expect  husbands  and  hap- 


INNOCENT    PLEASANTRY.  117 

piness,  ought  to  be  thorough-going  allies  of  the  temperance 
cause — since  drunken  husbands  abound,  and  just  horrible  is 
the  life  and  the  prospect  of  the  wife  of  every  one  of  them  I 
Possibly  the  reader  may  take  a  false  impression  here — as 

if  Miss were  really  engaged  to  get  me  to  drink  wine  ou 

the  occasion.  This  was  not  the  fact.  It  was  all  done  in 
easy  and  elegant  mirth  ;  the  well-bred  playfulness  of  a  happy 
young  daughter,  who  enjoyed  her  father's  friends,  and  natu- 
rally chose  to  make  herself  humorous  and  agreeable  to  all  the 
company.  She  had,  indeed,  been  used  to  hear  the  ultraisra 
of  total  abstinence  mainly  ridiculed,  as  eccentric,  as  Ameri- 
can, even  as  anti-scriptural,  by  all  the  Scots  ;  and,  "  inno- 
cently gay,"  she  carried  it  at  that,  meaning  gravely  not  any 
thing  in  the  world — incapable,  indeed,  of  meaning  any  thing 
unkind,  or  disrespectful,  or  even  admonitory  to  her  seniors. 
Her  manners,  and  the  tones  of  her  voice,  gave  the  perfect  ex- 
planation ;  and  the  real  Christian  urbanity  of  the  whole  cir- 
cle, and,  indeed,  of  the  entire  family,  insured  each  guest,  and 
especially  a  temperance-man  from  America,  against  all  that 
importunity,  which,  in  some  other  and  vastly  different  soci- 
ety, becomes  at  once  the  social  annoyance  of  the  guest  and 
the  moral  degradation  of  the  host,  at  every  table  where  wine 
is  introduced  as  a  beverage  and  an  elegance  ;  too  often  in 
criminal  conformity  to  the  fashionable  laws  of  the  jovial  and 
the  reprobate,  i.  Pet.  4  :  4,  1-6.  In  general,  my  grand  reason 
for  dwelling  on  the  topic  is  a  sincere  conviction  of  its  infinite 
importance — as  ebriety  kills  the  soul ;  to  say  nothing  of  the 
mischiefs  of  an  allied  but  inferior  sort,  done  by  it  to  the  body, 
the  usefulness,  the  good  name,  the  longevity,  and  the  success 
in  life,  of  its  multitudinous  and  immedicable  victims  I  If 
this  be  thought  singular — still,  in  this  I  remain.  Many  a 
better  person  has  had  to  be  more  singular,  for  the  good  of 
others,  in  such  a  world  as  this  I  Wherefore,  if  ineat  make 
my  brother  to  offend,  I  will  eat  no  flesh  [as  I  would  drink 
no  wine]  tvhile  the  xvorld  standeth,  lest  I  make  mif  brother 


118  THE    doctor's    concession. 

to  offend,  i.  Cor.  8  :  13,  8-13.     It  is  good  neither  to  eat 

flesh,    NOR    TO    DRINK    AVINE,    NOR    ANY    THING,    IvIiOcby   thy 

brother  slumblcth,  or  is  offended,  or  is  made  iceak,  Rom. 
14  :  21.  Self-denial  for  the  welfare  of  others  is  a  noble  and 
a  Christ-like  virtue.  Matt.  20  :  28  ;  and  to  prevent  men  from 
drunkenness — is  this  worthy  of  no  efibrt,  of  no  self-denial  ? 

We  were  soon  seated  in  convivial  gladness  around  the 
board,  when,  at  his  request,  uttering  thanks,  and  begging 
blessings  from  the  Great  Dispenser  of  all  good,  I  afterward 
owned  a  remorse  that  made  mc  almost  in  terms  except  the 
decanters  !  I  could  intently  ask  no  blessing  on  our  wine-bev- 
erage ;  and  this  I  freely  announced.  The  doctor,  frank  and 
hospitable,  passed  some  euloginm  on  the  temperance  move- 
ment, and  on  the  example  of  his  guest,  so  far  atca'  from 
home  ;  and  ended  by  saying  about  as  much  as  decently  he 
could  in  favor  of  both  ;  ending  thus  :  I  acknowledge  that  the 
man  who  acts  on  the  principle  of  total  abstinence  is  the  safer, 
and  the  happier,  and  the  wiser  man. 

1.  Dear  doctor,  what  a  concession  I  It  seems  to  me  you 
go  the  whole  figure,  in  sentiment  at  least.  Is  not  a  man 
bound  to  act  on  a  principle  that  makes  him  safe,  and  happy, 
and  "wise  ?  Is  he  not  religiously  bound,  that  is,  under  obli- 
gation in  the  sight  of  God,  to  act  on  such  a  principle  ?  For 
one,  I  am  glad  of  your  concession.  I  shall  not  fail  to  remem- 
ber it.  And  if  God  pleases  to  return  me  to  America,  I  will 
tell  of  it  there.  The  friends  of  temperance  in  its  "  mother 
country"  shall  hear  what  Dr.  Chalmers  said  in  its  favor. 
Would  to  God  I  could  add — and  he  acts  on  the  principle. 

2.  Not  just  yet  am  I  prepared  to  give  my  adhesion  to  the 
principle. 

1.  I  am  sorry  for  it.  When  I  was  here  thirteen  years  ago, 
you  spoke  of  it  with  such  general  approbation  and  delight, 
that  I  thought,  my  dear  sir,  you  were  in  a  good  waj',  and 
would  shortly  be  found  in  the  ranks  of  the  men  of  the  prin- 
ciple, as  one  with  them.     Oh  I  how  would  such  intelligence. 


A    TEAfl'ERATE    MA\.  IIP 

going  every  where  with  a  thrill,  be  greeted  in  many  places 
in  the  United  States  of  America  with  joy  and  jubilation. 
What  good  it  would  do  I  The  name  of  Chalmers,  quoted  on 
the  right  side,  as  "  a  safer,  a  happier,  and  a  wiser  man,"  of 
late,  by  adopting  the  principle,  would  do  great  good — and 
with  no  detriment,  no  privation  to  you  I  How  long,  my  dear 
doctor,  before  we  can  quote  you  in  this  right  honorable  way  ? 
If  you  refuse,  you  will  be  quoted  on  the  other  side,  and  re- 
sponsible for  the  good  you  failed  to  do.  But  I  leave  it  again 
to  your  own  wisdom  in  the  matter. 

It  is  due  to  Chalmers,  and  the  scene  I  have  narrated,  to 
add,  that  he  was  no  wine-bibber,  nor  any  of  his  amiable  fam- 
ily. On  the  occasion  just  described,  so  far  as  I  recollect,  he 
drank  none  at  all.  Very  little  was  used  by  his  guests.  The 
drinking  usages  of  his  country  and  his  ancestors  he  did  not, 
however,  assault  or  repudiate,  as  we  in  America  might  just- 
ly approve  ;  but  Chalmers  was  a  man  of  temperance,  of  uni- 
versal self-government,  of  symmetry  iu  conduct  and  excel- 
lency of  example.  Only  he  never  adopted  our  principle,  our 
method,  our  way  ;  though  he  so  considered  it,  generally  ap- 
proved it,  and  progressively  espoused  it,  by  approximation, 
that  many  thought,  and  I  was  one  of  them,  that,  by  all  or- 
dinary principles  of  human  estimate,  he  bid  fair  to  come  on 
our  platform,  before  many  more  months  passed  over  him, 
when  he  vanished  from  the  sight  of  the  dying — for  not  we 
live,  the  dead  only  are  immortal — they  live  alone  in  heaven. 

About  the  time  of  his  death,  as,  indeed,  often  in  previ- 
ous years,  yet  then  especially,  the  question  was  raised,  with 
keener  interest  in  America,  debated  in  public  at  our  temper- 
ance meetings,  and  discussed  on  all  sides  in  our  pubhc  news- 
papers, whether  Chalmers  approved  our  reform  ?  Had  he 
joined  it  ?  AVas  he  in  favor  of  our  great  principle  ?  What 
says  he  about  it  ?  Was  he  at  all  against  it  ?  All  this  shows 
the  value  of  his  name,  and  the  importance  of  his  sanction, 
and  the  celebrity  of  his  fame,  in  our  American  estimation. 


120  WHAT    IIENRV    CLAY    SAID. 

At  some  periods,  the  fact  was  asserted,  published,  echoed  in 
our  pulpits,  and  made  the  theme  of  popular  rejoicing,  that 
Chalmers  had  joined  the  cause  and  espoused  the  principle — 
as  it  was  afterward  more  certainly  contradicted  and  disbe- 
lieved. In  these  relations  and  circumstances,  it  seemed  prop- 
er, knowing  the  truth  in  the  case,  for  mc  thus  to  tell  it  : 
though  7mich  xcould  it  grieve  me,  in  such  adventurous  state- 
ments, one  particle  to  wrong  his  memory,  or  derogate  from 
his  pure  and  excellent  renown,  or  wound  one  fibre  of  feeling 
in  any  branch  of  his  lovely  and  excellent  family — now  of  the 
second  and  the  third  generation  alone  I  This  explanation 
will,  I  trust,  be  at  once  appreciated  and  acceptable,  in  ref- 
erence to  what,  in  other  circumstances,  I  should  have  dis- 
creetly and  wholly  omitted  in  this  narration.  I  would  pre- 
scribe to  the  conscience,  or  limit  the  liberty,  of  no  man  ;  and 
on  such  a  point  as  this,  persuasion  and  forbearance  is  mainly 
all  our  wisdom. 

Our  late  exalted  senator,  Henry  Clay,  once  said  to  me,  at 
Saratoga  Springs :  It  is  a  good  cause  that  you  are  advoca- 
ting, this  of  TEMPERANCE.  Let  me,  however,  say  that  a  sys- 
tem of  manly  argument  and  magnanimous  persuasion  is  the 
only  proper  one,  especially  for  our  countrymen.  Sometimes 
its  advocates  are  severe  and  dictatorial,  or  even  denunciatory 
and  vituperative.  By  aU  this  their  oratory  loses.  Their 
hearers  are  as  free  as  themselves,  and  they  know  it.  When 
you  decide  for  a  man,  this  is  not  so  good  as  to  make  him  de- 
cide for  himself.  It  is  not  the  right  kind  of  persuasion.  The 
cause  needs  select  and  competent  advocates,  and  ought  not  to 
be  committed  to  every  thing  on  two  legs  that  can  ape  an 
orator — that  is,  can  make  a  noise  ;  for  some  animals  on  four, 
with  long  ears,  can  do  that  I 

As  I  recollect  this  in  the  distance,  and  can  not  command 
his  very  phraseology,  I  give  it  by  honest  approximation,  and 
think  it,  even  at  that,  too  good  a  relic  of  our  great  American 
Nestor,  in  mere  oblivious  silence  to  be  lost. 


burk'b  close,  west  port.  121 

Since  writing  the  above,  I  have  been  pleased  to  read,  in 
the  speech  of  Mr.  Clay,  at  a  banquet  or  "  barbacue"  given 
him,  June  9,  1842,  on  his  return  to  Kentucky  and  to  his  own 
favorite  "Ashland,"  after  resigning  his  seat  in  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States,  and  after  a  happy  feast,  civic  and  social, 
full  of  sumptuous  cheer,  with  nothing  "  to  drink  but  cold 
water — excellent  water,  it  is  ti-ue,  from  the  classic  fountain 
of  our  lamented  friend,  Mr.  Maxwell,  which  has  so  often  re- 
galed us  on  celebrations  of  our  great  national  anniversary," 
the  following  additional  words,  epitomizing  the  sentiments  I 
have  commemorated  from  his  lips  : 

"  I  protest  against  any  inference  of  my  being  inimical  to 
the  temperance  cause.  On  the  conti'ary,  I  think  it  an  ad- 
mirable cause,  that  has  done  great  good,  and  will  continue  to 
do  good,  as  long  as  legal  coercion  is  not  employed,  and  it  rests 
exclusively  upon  persuasion  and  its  own  intrinsic  merits." 


I  must  now  invite  the  reader  to  go  back  with  me  in  the 
chronology  of  this  narration.  At  a  previous  interview,  Dr. 
Chalmers  asked  me,  as  follows  : 

2.  Are  you  resolved  to  be  one  of  my  auditors  next  Lord's 
day  ?  Because,  if  you  are,  I  am  resolved  to  be  one  of  yours 
also,  at  least  in  some  respects.  I  wished  to  keep  it  close, 
that  I  am  to  preach  then  in  Burks  Close,^  West  Port,  to  the 
neighbors  and  the  poor  people  near ;  but  I  understand  it  is 
noised  abroad,  and  hence  we  may  expect  quite  a  jam,  in  its 
limited  spaces,  on  that  occasion.  Besides,  I  shall  attempt 
nothing  but  plain  and  familiar  preaching,  and  so  I  desired 
that  no  strangers  might  be  there  ;  as  they  would  probably  dis- 
relish it,  and  neither  get  good,  nor  do  good,  by  their  attend- 
ance. But  so  be  it.  If  they  come,  we  must  meet  them,  and 
just  do  our  best  in  the  circumstances,  leaving  events  with 

*  Covered  court,  leading  from  the  street  to  small  buildings  in  the 
rear,  and  guarded  by  a  gate  ;  common  name  and  thing  in  the  cities 
of  Scotland,  as  also  of  England  too. 

F 


122  APPOINTMENT    THERE    TO    PREACH. 

God,  and  hoping  and  praying  for  the  copious  gift  of  his  Spirit. 
I  was  about  to  propose  to  you,  however,  a  partnership  with 
me  in  the  services.  If  you  will  come  there,  then  I  will  use 
you,  you  know  ;  and  all  the  introductory  parts,  before  the  ser- 
mon, you  will  perform.  It  will  be  quite  a  help  to  me,  and  so  I 
shall  be  reconciled  to  your  coming  there,  as  the  strength  of  an 
old  man  is  not  what  it  used  to  be.  Non  sum  qualis  eram 
is  an  ancient  saying,  which  old  men  gradually  learn  to  adopt. 

1.  Yes,  my  dear  doctor,  it  is  my  purpose,  certainly,  to  be 
with  you ;  and  not  mine  only.  My  daughter,  and  quite  a 
company  of  us  Americans;  will  be  there  ;  and  among  them 
your  venerable  friend,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Beecher  and  his  lady. 
Nor  shall  we  be  ofiended,  or  at  all  regretful,  to  meet  you  in 
a  place  so  humble.  We  consider  it  a  greater  honor  to  Chal- 
mers, the  minister  of  one,  on  earth  a  poor  man,  born  in  a 
manger  and  murdered  on  a  cross,  thus  to  officiate  to  the  poor 
and  the  destitute,  than  it  ever  could  be  to  dress  or  to  be  dec- 
orated to  the  excited  senses,  in  all  the  gorgeous  canonicals  of 
sacerdotal  pomp  ;  as  appears  the  rival  of  God,  the  man  of 
SIN,  in  the  ecumenical  Cathedral  of  St.  Peter's. 

Pardon  an  illustration  so  extravagant !  I  simply  mean 
that  the  humility  and  the  rarity  of  such  a  scene  will  only  the 
more  commend  it  to  our  approbation,  the  more  endear  its 
chief  actor  to  our  afiections.  As  for  my  services,  if  I  can  at 
all  meet  your  wishes,  and  assist  your  labors,  it  will  give  me 
real  pleasure.     You  may  command  me. 

2.  It  is  a  place,  as  you  have  heard,  of  horrible  associations  ; 
so  near  to  the  very  locality  of  the  Biirkiug  operations,  that 
of  late  thrilled  all  the  world  with  their  kidnapping  and  their 
summary  murders.  What  a  peril  it  was  to  many  of  our  cit- 
izens, who  narrowly  escaped  the  snare  I 

1.  Yes;  and  I  hear  that  you  are  there  actualizing  your 
grand  ideal  truth  of  the  disinfecting  virtues  of  the  gospel,  in 
its  proper  contact  with  depraved  individuals  and  degraded 
society.     If  you  can  there  emit  the  influence  of  salvation,  and 


THE    NEGLECTED    POOR    IN    CITIES.  123 

truly  Christianize  the  masses,  the  argument  will  be  good  ; 
philosophy  should  ponder  it,  as  the  fact  of  its  premises  must 
be  acknowledged,  and  what  succeeds  there  may  also  succeed 
any  where,  in  all  the  earth.  Still,  certain  am  1  that  the  only 
catholicon  in  the  world,  that  is,  for  the  whole  world,  and  in 
which  there  is  no  quackery,  no  illusion,  and  no  failure,  is  the 
glorious  gosjyel  of  the  blessed  God.  Since,  if  men  do  not  sin- 
cerely try  it  and  take  it,  then  the  patient  fails,  not  the  med- 
icament. If  men  will  not  obey  the  gospel,  or  believe  it,  they 
will  BE  DAMNED  ;  sincc  it  never  promises  salvation,  but  only 
its  terrible  opposite,  to  the  rejecter  of  its  mercy  and  the  dis- 
believer of  its  divinity.  May  the  giver  of  the  increase  pros- 
per your  benignant  and  most  praiseworthy  efforts  I 

2.  Oh  !  my  dear  sir,  my  soul  sometimes  shudders  to  see  the 
awfully  neglected  condition  of  the  poorer  classes  even  in  this 
great  metropolis — and  so  it  is,  only  worse,  in  London  and  the 
cities  of  the  continent.     It  shall  be  for  a  lamentation  I 

1.  Alas  I  indeed.  How  many  millions  in  Christendom  ut- 
terly neglect  Christianity,  and  perish  in  their  sins — while  each, 
too,  may  say,  accusing  the  neglects  of  Christians,  No  man  cares 
for  my  soul.  I  cordially  sympathize  with  your  griefs,  and  cor- 
respond with  your  shudders,  in  this  most  solemn  and  affect- 
ing relation.  There  is  a  fault  somewhere — their  blood  cries 
to  God  for  their  punishment,  who  directly  or  indirectly  refuse 
them  the  appointed  means  of  grace — whoever  they  are  I 

2.  It  seems  a  problem  that  the  Church  or  the  ministry  has 
yet  to  work  out — How  are  they  to  be  reached  ?  how  brought 
under  the  influence  of  salvation  ?  how  subjected  to  Christ  in 
the  gospel  ?     It  is  certainly  a  fearful  problem,  that ! 

1.  Well,  my  dear  sir,  this  conversation  will,  I  trust,  have 
the  effect  to  prepare  me  to  hear  your  faithful  ministration, 
only  with  a  higher  and  a  better  appreciation,  if  the  Lord  will 
that  we  live,  and  that  we  meet,  as  we  now  anticipate. 


Thus  did  this  man  of  God  think,  and  feel,  and  act  for  the 


124  TENDER    FEELINGS    OF    CHALMERS. 

poor.  And  if  that  theory  is  sound  and  correct  which  con- 
strues a  moral  action,  not  by  what  it  accompHshes,  bat  by 
what  it  cordially  intends,  or  by  that  toAvard  which  its  tend- 
ency aims  and  moves,  then,  virtually,  the  pious  philanthropy 
of  such  a  soul,  desiring  intensely  the  conversion  of  all  men, 
as  the  only  way  of  the  salvation  of  all  men,  since  he  would 
do  it  if  he  could,  may  be  construed  in  heaven  as  virtually 
converting,  and  virtually  saving  all  men  I  And  yet  who 
truly  loves  Christ,  through  the  faith  of  his  word,  and  thinks 
wisely  on  such  a  subject,  without  virtually  doing  the  same? 
In  these  relations,  so  private,  so  unknown,  at  least  to  the 
great  public,  I  seem  to  myself  as  oflbnding,  I  trust,  against 
no  right  and  no  law,  while  picturing  this  great  and  good  man, 
as  he  was,  in  his  personal  character  and  his  unbent  and  truth- 
ful manifestations.  The  pleasure  they  minister  to  my  own 
reconsideration  and  recollection  of  them,  is  only  augmented 
and  enhanced  in  communicating  something  of  their  history  to 
others — as  here,  to  dispense  from  such  a  fountain,  is  not  to 
exhaust,  or  reduce,  or  impair  it.  I  never  knew  a  man,  prob- 
ably, so  greatly  celebrated,  or  distinguished  in  a  way  so  high- 
ly eminent,  who  seemed  to  have  and  to  hold  so  rich,  and  so 
simple,  and  so  child-like  a  humility.  At  times,  his  incidental 
expressions  of  it,  with  nothing  factitious,  or  artistic,  or  got- 
up-for-eflect  in  them,  were  very  sweet  and  beautiful.  They 
were  rare  and  ripe  specimens  in  Christian  cardiology.  He 
was  the  disciple,  acting  in  the  felt  presence  of  his  Master.  He 
is  now  ivith  Him. 


Here  we  may  make  a  circular  deviation,  for  future  use  and 
terminal  illustration.  I  give  facts  and  anecdotes,  which  I 
never  witnessed,  with  a  sense  of  vagueness  and  indefinite- 
ness  ;  still,  in  the  present  instance,  with  some  rational  and 
good  confidence  in  the  substantial  truth  of  the  story.  If  the 
reader  will  digest  and  remember  it,  my  ulterior  reason  may 
at  length  approve  itself  to  his  judgment. 


CARDINAL    POINTS   OF    OaTHODOXY.  126 

Orthodoxy,  not  only  in  Scotland,  but  here  also  in  America, 
yet  here,  I  opine,  with  many  more  excellent  exceptions,  is 
ollen  found  at  fault,  in  preaching  its  own  doctrines,  mainly 
by  making,  in  an  important  and  practical  point,  a  seeming 
or  a  real,  as  well  as  a  practical,  contradiction.  It  requires 
one  skillful  in  the  word  of  righteousness  to  preach  ortho- 
doxy, and  yet  avoid  it.  Now,  I  am  not  disparaging  ortho- 
doxy ;  by  which  I  mean  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  noth- 
ing but  the  truth,  of  God.  But  theology,  like  any  other  great 
science — though  it  be  infinitely  and  eternally  the  greatest  of 
the  sciences,  as  it  includes  all  others,  requires  learning,  thor- 
ough and  well-taught  wisdom,  to  master  and  elucidate  to  the 
people,  harmoniously  and  profitably,  all  its  loca  dijficiliora, 
or  parts  and  places  of  difficulty.  One  of  these,  and  a  great 
one,  is,  always  to  reconcile  the  real  dependence  of  the  sin- 
ner and  the  saint  on  grace  divine,  as  the  Bible  does  ;  with 
his  obligation  to  do  the  commands  of  God  and  his  agency  in 
obeying  the  gospel.  The  excellent  manner  in  which  apos- 
tles did  this  is  no  mean  proof  of  the  inspiration  that  pro- 
duced it.  They  left  contradictions  and  learned  nonsense  to 
the  schoolmen  ;  those  copious  and  specious  dealers  in  hoc  ge- 
nus omne,  whose  logic  can  prove  any  thing,  whose  rhetoric  can 
grace  stultiloquence  with  beautiful  plausibility,  and  whose 
audacity  can  affirm,  quite  credibly,  whatever  error  may  suit 
the  occasion.  Now  we  admit  that  many  examples  of  sin- 
cere stupidity,  and  many  of  illustrious  stultiloquy,  and  many 
of  blundering  injury,  may  be  quoted  here  against  us ;  and 
that  they  do  hurt  hazardous  to  the  souls  of  men  I  They  seem 
almost  to  warrant  the  caricature,  in  which  they  are  some- 
times decorated,  vulgarly  and  profanely,  to  the  gaze  and  the 
contempt  of  millions.  Take  a  specimen  ;  which,  in  a  justly 
definable  variation  or  qualification  of  the  sense  of  the  words 
used,  is  just  the  eternal  truth  of  God,  all  of  it  I 
You  can  and  you  can't, 
You  will  and  you  wont ; 


126  MORRISON  ISM WHAT. 

You  shall  and  you  shan't, 

You'll  be  damn'd  if  you  don't. 

As  I  have  it,  the  Church  of  Scotland  licensed  and  ordained 
a  young  man  of  the  name  of  Morrison,  whose  gifts  and  ven- 
tures in  the  ministry  were  making  some  unique  and  censured 
demonstrations,  about  the  time  of  my  last  visit  there,  or  just 
previous  to  it.  He  saw  there  was  a  difficulty,  from  his  prem- 
ises, in  making  to  the  sinner  the  real  offer  of  the  gospel. 
He  felt  it  with  intense  distress.  He  could  neither  solve  nor 
bear  it ;  so,  Alexander-like,  he  cut  the  knot.  He  cut  him- 
self too  —  like  some  in  our  country,  who,  however,  have  no 
wholesome  and  effective  Presbyterian  discipline  or  constitu- 
tional polity  to  set  things  right  when  they  get  wrong ;  even 
on  such  great  articles  as  the  revealed  mode  of  the  Godhead ; 
the  supreme  deity  of  Christ ;  the  real  vicarious  and  expiatory 
nature  of  his  atonement ;  the  divine  method  of  justification  ; 
the  principles,  and  uses,  and  ends  of  language,  as  the  medium 
of  revelation  from  God  to  us,  or  from  one  man  to  another. 
Morrison,  it  seems,  vacated  and  denied  the  office-work  of  the 
Spirit ;  as  if  the  order.  Repent  and  believe  the  gospel,  were 
irreconcilable  with  it ;  as  if  the  invitation.  Come  to  me,  were 
embarrassed  only,  not  facilitated  by  it.  The  result  was  his 
deposition  from  office,  and  the  denunciation  of  his  doctrine. 
Another  result — every  body  in  the  pulpit  was  just  a  little, 
or  not  a  little,  too  particular,  at  once  to  preach  down  Mor- 
RisoNiANiSM,  and  to  show  every  body,  and  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren, how  specially  clear  were  they  of  all  taint  of  it.  Mor- 
risonians,  indeed  I — they,  so  wise  and  sound,  they  were  no 
such  thing  at  all  I  The  people,  too,  sympathized  in  the  an- 
tagony  ;  and  even  Chalmers  seemed  willing  to  care  too  much 
about  defining  his  position  of  antipathy.  This  phobia  was 
quite  pervading  ;  sometimes  rather  ridiculous.  Why  not  let 
the  people  hear  tchat  the  Spirit  saith  to  the  churches,  with- 
out breaking  order,  and  symmetry,  and  influence,  at  every 
turn  and  sentence,  by  pragmatical  intervention,  in  an  attempt 


TO  VAUNT  one's  ORTHODOXY.  127 

to  show  that  it  was  not  the  sense  or  the  way  of  the  Spirit, 
and  especially  not  our  way,  to  sanction  Morrisonianism ! 

It  is  not  so  honorable  for  a  minister  of  Christ,  especially 
in  an  orthodox  ecclesiastical  connection,  to  be  sound  in  the 
faith,  and  a  cordial  and  entire  friend  to  the  revealed  system 
in  all  its  truth,  as  it  is  shameful  and  nefarious  for  him  to  be 
any  other  than  such  a  theologian  and  such  a  preacher.  His 
orthodoxy  is  analogous  in  society  to  the  purity  of  woman.  It 
must  not  be  impeached,  or  suspected,  or  defended,  or  handled 
in  common.  The  winds  of  heaven  may  not  blow  on  it  ex- 
posed. Besides,  the  practice  of  self- vindication  is  only  con- 
temptible, as  a  species  of  self-impeachment  and  the  implica- 
tion of  morbid  consciousness.  Qui  se  excusat,  magis  accu- 
sat.  One  should  mainly  trust  himself  and  his  reputation  to 
God,  caring  for  realities  rather  than  appearances,  and  desir- 
ing to  do  good  to  souls  more  than  eclaircise  his  own  reputa- 
tion. Let  a  man  mind  to  do  his  duty,  and  ordinarily  his  ac- 
tions will  tell  their  own  story  in  the  instinctive  sentiments 
of  men.  We  have  seen  and  remember  some  bragging  ortho- 
doxy-venders, whose  terminus  justified  their  accusers — they 
gloried  self-righteously  in  their  orthodoxy — pshaw  I  and  ac- 
cused and  calumniated  some  of  the  best  and  the  most  useful 
ministers  of  God.  De  talibus  citius  dicto  obliviscendian  est. 
But  rest  we  here  for  a  moment. 

On  the  appointed  morning,  a  fine  day  of  boreal  summer, 
we  arrived  too  soon  at  the  place  by  some  forty  minutes,  and 
yet  too  late,  as  it  seemed,  to  find  easily  a  seat.  The  apart- 
ment had  been  commonly  unused  for  its  present  purpose ;  and 
its  largeness  was  made  by  a  summary  mode  of  "  church  ex- 
tension," known  by  some  of  our  own  missionaries,  that  of  re- 
moving the  partition  between  two  rather  small  rooms,  as  it 
appeared.  Well,  it  was  overflowing  full ;  but  the  sexton, 
having  some  hint  or  word  that  I  was  to  assist  Dr.  Chalmers 
that  morning,  began  to  purvey  me  a  seat,  near  the  table,  at  ^ 
which  the  place  of  the  doctor  was  awaiting  him.     With  dif- 


128  A    SUDDEN    AND    STRANGE    SERVICE. 

ficulty  and  his  assistance,  I  reached  it,  and  saw  the  crowds 
collecting  without,  as  well  as  squeezed  together  within  ;  yet 
no  Dr.  Chalmers.  I  felt  that  some  irregularity  must  ensue, 
and  remained  more  anxious  than  happy,  till  the  sexton  or 
beadle  came,  amain,  through  the  parted  crowd,  and  informed 
me  that  Dr.  Chalmers  was  waiting  in  another  room  near, 
and  very  desirous  to  see  me  I  I  objected,  it  seemed  so  dif- 
ficult to  get  there  through  the  mass,  and  then  so  hopeless  to 
return.  But  he  was  earnest  and  firm.  He  marshaled  me 
the  way  ;  I  followed  him,  and  was  soon  in  the  presence  of  the 
doctor,  when,  after  despatching  the  commonplaces,  he  said, 

2.  My  dear  six,  you  see  here  how  it  is — a  larger  audience  on 
the  outside  than  there  is  in  the  inside,  and  many  of  them  men 
of  sense  and  standing  in  this  city.  "Well,  I  have  just  given 
orders,  and  you  must  come  into  the  arrangement.  They  will 
have  a  large  table  spread  there,  a  carpet  to  cover  it,  a  small 
table  on  it,  and  the  Bible  on  the  table.  So  you  must  climb 
up  and  preach  there,  and  I  will  try  it  inside.  There's  just 
no  other  way,  you  see  ;  and  plainly  you  are  called  to  it. 

I  acquiesced  with  real  regret,  as  it  settled  the  question  of 
my  ever  hearing  Chalmers  again,  and  I  knew  it !  Soon  I 
was  mounted,  and  explaining  the  matter  to  my  very  intelli- 
gent and  Christian-looking  audience,  mostly  of  my  own  sex, 
the  ladies  having  found  accommodations  within.  The  text 
was,  Isai.  55:  1.  Ho!  every  one  that  thirsteth ;  come  ye 
to  the  loaters — and  so  to  the  end.  My  position  was  not  very 
easy  or  commodious,  yet  I  proceeded  and  finished  the  service. 
They  were  very  attentive  ;  and  probably  some  curiosity  to  see 
and  hear  an  American  might  explain  much  of  it ;  probably 
the  grace  of  God  may  be  credited  for  more  of  it.  At  any 
rate,  I  spoke  with  freedom  and  directness — not  scared  out  of 
my  proper  consistency  with  a  fear  of  the  charge  of  Morriso- 
nianism,  nor  anxious  particularly  to  vaunt  my  undoubted  or- 
\  thodoxy.  I  let  my  reputation  take  care  of  itself,  or,  rather, 
commended  it  and  its  proprietor  to  the  care  and  grace  of  God. 


THE    PKEACHING    OF    CHALMERS.  129 

What  was  enacted  within,  I  was  not  there  to  witness. 
Each  preacher  could  hear  the  voice  of  the  other,  without  any 
discrimination  of  the  sense  in  the  sound.  But  from  several 
others  who  were  present  I  mainly  describe  it.  The  doctor 
preached  in  his  own  admirable  way  to  an  arrested  and  sol- 
emn auditory — yet,  whether  so  familiar  or  not  might  be  a 
question.  His  text,  ii.  Cor.  5  :  20. — Noiv  then  tve  are  am- 
bassadors for  Christ ;  as  though  God  did  beseech  you  by 
us,  we  pray  you  in  Christ's  stead,  be  ye  reconciled  to 
God — was  rich  and  excellent,  and  one  might  be  allowed  to 
guess  how  Chalmers  used  it.  His  notes  were  before  him, 
though  he  seemed  remarkably  unconfined  to  them.  But  to 
such  a  mind  as  his,  so  philosophical,  so  affluent,  so  disci- 
plined, and  so  habituated  to  revel  in  scholastic  forms  and 
phrases,  it  is  quite  possible  that  there  was  too  much  of  learned 
abstraction,  and  too  little  of  practical  directness  and  familiar 
plainness,  in  his  admirable  sermon ;  that  I  could  not  hear  it, 
was  a  privation  and  a  disappointment,  as  I  felt  then,  and  feel 
now,  almost  wounded  with  the  thought  that  I  had  lost  the 
only  opportunity  I  might  ever  have  to  hear  him  once  more, 
in  the  spirited  and  powerful  discharge  of  his  appropriate  and 
holy  function. 

But  I  am  noAV  to  narrate  another,  but  a  related  matter — 
which,  if  it  were  to  come  off,  I  regret  that  I  was  not  "  there 
to  see."  Among  liis  hearers,  for  the  first  and  the  last  time 
in  his  life,  was  the  venerable  Dr.  Beecher  ;  and  he  was,  in 
his  feelings  and  his  thoughts,  no  ordinary  hearer  !  He  was 
filled  with  the  subject,  enthusiastic  in  his  correspondence 
with  it,  and  not  a  little  impressed  with  the  idea  of  a  practical 
defect  in  it,  as  wanting  more  direct  and  personal  application. 
Consequently,  after  its  close,  he  enacted  a  part,  which,  how- 
ever it  might  be  appreciated  in  America,  was  quite  singular, 
if  not  censurable,  in  Scotland,  especially  in  the  city  of  Edin- 
burgh, the  great  Athens  of  North  Britain,  and  most  especially 
as  a  quasi  addendutn  to  the  sermon  of  Chalmers  I    As  I  give 

F  2 


130  VOLUNTARY  OF  BEECHER. 

the  narration  only  from  hearsay,  though  from  the  lips  of  con- 
current witnesses,  I  must  remind  the  reader  that  I  may  not 
be  minutely  correct  in  all  the  forms,  and  the  details,  and  the 
phrases  of  that  memorable  address,  "  on  the  voluntary  prin- 
ciple."    He  spoke  mainly  as  follows  : 

My  friends  and  brethren  here  present,  I  trust  you  will  al- 
low one  in  my  circumstances,  with  the  consent  of  the  honored 
preacher,  to  say  an  additional  word  on  his  great  theme,  the 
more,  if  possible,  to  impress  its  rich  and  solemn  truth  on  the 
minds  of  you  all.  I  am  four  or  five  thousand  miles  from  my 
home  and  country,  have  lived  long  in  God's  world,  and  can 
scarce  hope  much  longer  to  continue  in  it,  and  for  half  a  cen- 
tury have  been  occupied  as  a  preacher  of  the  gospel.  Hence, 
my  friends,  you  may  see  some  reason  for  my  special  interest 
in  the  subject  on  this  special  occasion.  I  pray  that  this  sol- 
emn and  faithful  discourse  may  not  be  lost  on  any  of  us  ; 
and  that,  on  the  contrary,  you  may  aright  improve  it  to  your 
everlasting  advantage,  siiffcr,  I  pray  you,  the  word  of  exhor- 
tation ;  though  from  the  lips  of  a  stranger,  yet  from  the  heart 
of  a  friend.  I  shall  never  meet  you  again,  most  probably,  till 
we  stand  together  at  the  judgment-scat  of  Christ.  Well, 
there  are  four  things  that  I  would  affectionately  enjoin  on  you, 
connected  with  the  sermon  just  dehvered  to  us  : 

First.  Try  to  review,  that  you  may  retain,  that  you  may 
understand,  that  you  may  improve,  the  great  truths  you  have 
heard,  lest  at  amj  time  you  may  let  them,  slijy,  and  be  forgot- 
ten and  lost. 

Second.  Resolve  here,  now,  on  the  spot,  that  you  will  im- 
prove them,  will  be  reconciled  to  God,  his  enemies  no  more  ; 
his  friends,  his  subjects,  his  children,  from  this  hour. 

Third.  Remember  it  to-morrow  ;  act  on  it ;  keep  and  car- 
ry it  about  with  you  ;  think — a  savor  of  death  to  death,  if 
not  of  life  to  life;  and  this  necessarily,  one  or  the  other; 
and  then  comes  heaven  or  hell,  at  last ;  just  as  you  treat  the 
message,  to  improve  it  or  not.     I  join  with  the  preacher,  old- 


DIFFERENT    OPINIONS.  131 

er  than  he,  and  both  of  us  earnest,  though  not  half  earnest 
enough,  yet  with  gray  hairs  and  warm  hearts,  as  though 
God  did  beseech  you  by  us,  we  pray  you,  in  Christ's  stead, 
Be  ye  reconciled  to  God.  Yes,  here  all  God's  ambassa- 
dors are  one  ;  and  now  it  is  as  if  America  and  Europe,  and 
heaven  and  earth,  all  as  one,  and  above  all,  God  himself, 
prostrate,  at  the  feet  of  the  moral  agents  that  he  made,  your 
suppliants,  beseeching  you  I  Can  you  slight  it — what  ?  and 
yet  hope  to  be  saved  ?     But, 

Fourth.  With  all  your  resolves  and  efforts,  it  will  come 
to  naught  but  death  to  death  at  last,  without  the  grace  of 
God,  to  help,  keep,  gird,  guide,  and  guard  you  in  the  way, 
and  all  the  way  ;  therefore  pray  to  HIM.  Pray  now,  pray 
every  day,  pray  always,  pray  ivithout  ceasing,  pray  in  faith, 
pray  for  faith,  pray  till  praise  prevents  you ;  and  let  prayer 
and  praise,  in  their  happy  alternations,  make  the  salubrious 
and  the  celestial  atmosphere  of  all  your  pilgrimage,  till  you 
come  home  to  heaven,  where  praise,  and  song,  and  progres- 
sion in  eternal  blessedness,  shall  be  all  your  delight  and  all 
your  business,  without  weariness,  or  imperfection,  or  fatigue, 
or  any  infirmity,  forever  active  and  forever  young  I 

The  audience  heard  all  this  with  strange  and  rapt  emo- 
tion ;  some  pleased  and  rejoiced  beyond  measure  ;  others, 
withholding  their  approbation  till  they  saw  whereto  this 
would  grow  ;  others,  waiting  for  some  authority  to  give  them 
an  opinion  ;  and  others,  almost  angry  and  censorious  at  the 
unwonted  venture  or  interruption  from  Ohio  I  It  took  them 
all  aback.  Such  an  occurrence,  or  a  similar  one,  I  dare  say, 
Chalmers'  ministry  never  before  encountered.  But  I  have 
reason  to  think  the  spectacle  was  viewed,  generally,  as  hap- 
py, and  even  sublime.  Beecher  was  the  senior  of  Chalmers 
about  five*  years.  How  different,  too,  their  education  and 
the  career  of  their  usefulness  ;  and  on  theatres  how  dissimi- 

*  Tlie  one  born  March  17,  1780 ;  the  other  October  12,  1775,  nine 
months  before  our  national  Declaration  of  Independence. 


132  NO    GREAT    FAULT    IN    IT. 

lar  their  action,  their  growth,  and  their  development,  respect- 
ively. Yet  in  tlie  unity  of  the  faith  they  were  one.  Ven- 
erable in  so  many  aspects  of  his  character,  "  for  years  de- 
serving honor,  but  for  wisdom  more,"  Beecher  stood  mature, 
with  the  snows  of  seventy-one  winters  on  his  head,  faithfully 
confirming  the  words  of  their  venerated  preacher,  affection- 
ately reimpressing  them  on  the  minds  of  the  hearers,  and  sol- 
emnly warning  them  to  obey  the  gospel.  It  was,  however, 
a  novelty  or  an  innovation ;  and,  as  such,  opinions  were  va- 
rious as  to  its  character  and  its  propriety. 

For  one,  I  may  write  it  here,  that,  however  estimated  in 
Europe,  1  could  wish  his  address  were  printed,  stereotyped, 
and  placed,  three  in  every  pew,  of  every  church,  and  on  ev- 
ery occasion  M-hen  the  truth  of  the  gospel  is  clearly  and  pure- 
ly declared  in  the  ears  of  the  people  of  America.  I  believe 
the  Spirit  of  God  would  take  no  offense  at  it — so  grieved, 
and  so  resisted,  by  that  opposite  course  of  fashionable  levity 
and  religious  driveling,  which  murders  souls,  and  which  the 
FOUR  ITEMS  of  Beecher's  address  are  so  well  adapted  to  ex- 
pose, rebuke,  and  supersede.  It  is  authorized  eminently  by 
such  words  as  the  Spirit  saith  to  the  Churches,  in  many  a 
notable  passage ;  for  example.  Therefore  ice  ought  to  give 
the  MORE  EARNEST  HEED  to  the  things  which  toe  Jiave  heard, 
lest  at  any  time  ice  should  let  them  slip.  Wherefore,  as 
the  Holy  Ghost  saith.  To-day,  if  ye  will  hear  his  voice, 
harden  not  your  hearts.  Ye  stiff-necked  and  uncircum- 
cised  in  heart  and  ears,  ye  do  always  resist  the  Holy 
Ghost  ;  as  your  fathers  did,  so  do  ye.  Not  to-morrow,  but 
nmv  is  the  accepted  time;  behold,  now  is  the  day  of  salva- 
tion. 

Both  services  seemed  to  be  finished  about  the  same  time 
After  some  recognitions  and  gratulations  of  friends,  I  met 
Chalmers  in  the  apartment  where  I  had  last  before  seen  him. 
He  spoke  very  affectionately,  as  might  so  revered  a  patri- 
arch ;  thaixked  me  for  my  compliance  with  his  request ;  ut- 


APPREHENSION    OF    CHALMERS.  ]  33 

tered  some  kind  words  about  my  discourse,  as  so  extempora- 
neous and  acceptable  ;  and  then  remarked  about  his  own,  as 
not  so  happy  in  his  own  view,  since  he  was  in  some  perplexi- 
ty about  the  things  and  the  scenery  around  him  ;  so  difTereut 
from  what  he  designed  in  the  origin  of  that  strangely-located 
and  extraordinary  service.  I  had  heard  mainly  nothing  of 
the  events  within  doors,  and  he  adverted  to  them  as  follows  : 
2.  After  I  had  ceased,  our  venerable  friend  from  Cincin- 
nati asked  permission  to  add  a  few  words.  It  was  rather 
odd  to  us  here,  and  we  could  not  tell  what  he  wanted  to  say. 
The  precedent  would  not  answer  with  us,  and  we  are  quite 
unused  to  the  like  of  it.  And  what  he  said  was  quite  good 
and  solemn,  only  that  it  was  open  to  the  allegation  of  one 
fault,  which,  I  fear,  was  remarked  by  some  of  the  critics 
among  us.     On  the  whole,  I  rather  regretted  the  occurrence. 

1.  But,  doctor,  the  critics,  if  that  means  the  men,  were 
mainly  outsiders.     All  the  ladies  nearly  were  with  you. 

2.  True ;  but  some  of  both  sexes  there,  who  heard  it, 
must  have  observed  it,  as  I  rather  fear,  and  so  considered  it 
as  heretical. 

1 .  My  dear  sir  I  why,  did  you  so  consider  it  ?  And  in  what 
respect  ? 

2.  No  ;  it  contained  no  heresy  at  all.  I  allow  it  was  all 
sound  aQd  good.  Still,  I  fear  that  some  of  them  will  accuse 
it  of  Momsonianism.  Their  attention  is  so  turned  to  that 
evil  doctrine  just  now,  that  they  will  be  apt  to  think  it  has 
traveled  to  America  and  corrupted  your  orthodox  preachers 
there.  Error  flies  very  swiftly  in  the  atmosphere  of  this  sin- 
ning world. 

1 .  Why,  dear  sir,  I  trust  they  will  not  be  at  once  so  sensi- 
tive, so  unjust,  and  so  silly.  It  is,  I  think,  no  foolery  of  ours 
at  all — it  is  wholly  Scotch. 

2.  Yes,  but  he  exhorted  them  to  do  so  much,  and  said  not 
a  word,  from  first  to  last,  about  the  Spirit  helping  them — 
that  was  the  great  omission. 


134 


PHOBIA    OF    HERESY. 


1 .  And  is  not  that  the  very  way  in  which  the  Spirit  speaks 
to  the  Churches,  quite  often,  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  ?  Christ 
says,  Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock  ;  if  any  man 
hear  my  voice,  atid  open  the  door,  I  will  come  iti,  and  sup 
icith  hi?n,  and  he  tvith  me.  Now,  plainly  it  is  his  duty  to 
open  the  door  to  Christ,  and  antecedently  to  hear  his  voice 
in  order  to  it.  But  neither  the  one  duty,  nor  the  other,  nor 
any  duty  at  all,  is  done,  in  fact,  ever,  hy  sinner  or  by  saint, 
without  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  tvorking  in  tis  that  zvhich 
is  well-pleasing  in  his  sight.  But  is  the  Bible  itself  ob- 
noxious to  such  a  charge,  because  it  does  not  drop  a  paren- 
thesis at  every  sentence,  and  every  doctrine,  and  every  in- 
junction, about  our  dependence  on  the  influences  of  the  Spir- 
it ?  Is  the  decalogue  heretical,  the  Ten  Commandments 
Morrisonian,  because  the  Spirit,  or  the  Son,  or  the  Father,  by 
name,  is  not  mentioned  once  in  the  whole  of  it  ?  I  trust  your 
hearers,  especially  the  more  intelligent  of  them,  will  have 
too  much  justice,  as  well  as  too  much  sense  and  wisdom,  to 
wrong  Dr.  Beecher  with  the  charge  of  Morrisonianism.  The 
CREDENDA  and  the  agenda  of  Christianity  are  at  once  per- 
fectly related  and  perfectly  distinct.  No  man  in  the  world 
believes  intelligently  more  than  he.  or  probably  preaches  and 
prays  more,  in  the  work  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  his  influences 
and  his  fruits.  And  as  to  this  new-fangled  heresy  that  is  just 
noAv  rampant  so  much,  and  so  intensively  among  you,  I  ques- 
tion if  he  ever  heard  of  its  existence.  It  is  a  mere  air-bub- 
ble, or  a  smoke  one,  of  your  own  vernacular  theology. 

2.  Indeed,  you  are  quite  right.  Perhaps  I  am  given  to 
overrate  such  aberrations  ;  but  there  is  ever  some  new  phase 
of  error  upturning  to  our  startled  fears,  though  old  in  the  his- 
tory of  erroneous  ecclesiastical  dogmas  ;  and  refuted  often, 
virtually  or  in  form,  centuries  before  its  present  inventors 
and  propagators  were  born.  I  am  thinking,  however,  that 
this  late  virulence  will  damage  our  national  pulpit,  and  hurt 
our  common  theology,  in  more  ways  than  one. 


1 


CHIROGRAPHY    OF    CHALMERS,  135 

1.  I  confess  there  are  questions  of  truth  and  skill,  which 
all  your  young  spiritual  cadets  would  do  well,  with  study,  and 
patience,  and  prayer,  to  resolve  and  master,  in  reference  to 
THE  MANNER  OF  PREACHING  THE  GOSPEL — offering  its  mercy 
to  men — and  subserving,  instead  of  subverting,  the  true  in- 
fluences of  the  Spirit,  by  exemplifying  the  way  of  the  Spirit, 
as  shown  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  ;  studying  them,  and  imi- 
tating, with  manly  wisdom,  those  inspired  and  stupendous 
examples  of  preaching. 


So  passed  the  time  in  his  company  I  The  more  I  had  of 
it,  the  more  I  desired  to  have,  and  the  more  attached  to  him 
I  became.  From  my  jfirst  acquaintance  with  him,  indeed,  I 
had  occasionally  corresponded  with  his  family  and  himself; 
and  here  1  may  say  that  his  chirography  was  as  original,  and 
as  singularly  bad,  as  his  thinking  was  eloquent  and  his  dic- 
tion superb.  Such  quail-tracks  on  paper  I  One  describes  it 
as  if  a  spider  had  fallen  into  the  ink,  and  then  got  out,  and 
ran  over  the  paper,  backward  and  forward,  in  angles,  curves, 
and  diagonals,  describing  all  sorts  of  geometrical  figures,  till 
the  sheet  was  covered  !  When  one  of  his  letters  arrived,  I 
was  glad  of  it — ^perhaps  enough  !  but  I  knew  what  decipher- 
ing study  was  before  me.  So,  like  an  anaconda  attacking  a 
dead  elephant,  I  went  round  it,  looked  over  it,  made  general 
observations,  retired  and  rested,  then  renewed  the  assault,  at- 
tempted the  mental  deglutition,  persevered,  repeated  the  ef- 
fort, and  sometimes — as  snakes  never  do — invoked  a  friendly 
Champollion  to  assist  me  in  the  enterprise.  On  one  occasion, 
I  had,  in  about  ten  days,  fairly  mastered  the  whole  letter — 
except  one  word  1  and  what  was  that,  or  what  it  could  sens- 
ibly be  made  to  seem,  was  too  much  for  me.  The  connec- 
tion had  no  illumination  for  it ;  and  at  last  I  was  indebted 
to  the  superior  sagacity  of  my  friend,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Skinner, 
for  ascertaining  the  word — Reviews.  I  may  add,  that  one 
of  his  best  letters  I  had  spirited  away  from  me  by  one  of  the 


136  HIS    DISDAIN    OF    PUSEVISM. 

cunning  and  covetous  collectors  of  autographs  ;  from  which, 
if  I  could  command  or  recover  it,  I  might  enrich  this  work 
with  some  select  quotations.  But  it  is  neither  in  my  pos- 
session, nor  my  knowledge,  nor  my  power.  I  calmly  par- 
don, not  without  some  effort,  the  felony  that  abstracted  it, 
through  special  skill ;  and  yet,  that  one  honored  brother,  the 
friend  of  Chalmers  and  my  own  friend,  called  by  some  wags 
the  king  of  autographs,*  might  not  be  suspected,  and  wronged, 
in  this  relation,  I  must  say  only  that  the  wily  and  the  right 
honorable  felon  was — a  lady.  In  that  letter,  as  I  recollect, 
were  some  golden  sentences  of  pious  scorn  against  a  modern, 
and  yet  an  ancient,  system  of  pseudology  and  stupidity,  which 
is  infinitely  stronger  in  the  devil's  patronage  than  Morriso- 
niauism,  and  thus  proved  nearer  to  his  own  heart  and  better 
for  his  own  kingdom — I  mean  puseyism  !  Such  an  impos- 
ture, mendacious  and  assumptive,  that  inhabits  a  half-way 
house  between  popery  and  protestantism,  though  not  in  the 
centre  between  them,  but  nearer,  and  still  getting  nearer, 
the  former ;  and  putting  on  her  vail,  or  putting  it  off,  as  cir- 
cumstances vary  the  policy  of  appearance  ;  such  a  system, 
a  mighty  and  a  holy  mind,  like  that  of  Chalmers,  must  re- 
ligiously denounce  and  energetically  abhor.  And  for  one  of 
their  fundamental  fallacies,  with  which  they  sectarianize, 
make  schism,  profane  religion,  and  deceive  many,  I  can  from 
memory  quote  his  measured  words  of  holy  reprobation  and 
contempt,  "  the  uxter  folly  of  apostolical  succession  !" 
A  late  prelate,  in  converse  with  a  Presbyterian  bishop  on 
this  topic,  said.  Well,  sir,  it  is  a  great  office,  and  has  come 
down  to  us  from  many  ages  and  generations  ;  and  thank 
God,  I  have  it.  He  replied.  You  have  all  there  is  of  it,  I 
have  no  doubt  I  I  bless  God  that  I  have  no  such  thing ; 
and  expect  to  bless  him  for  it  at  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ, 
and  after  that  to  all  eternity  ;  with  all  my  soul — odi  et  arceo 

*  Some  reader  may  possibly  not  know  that  I  refer  to  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Sprague,  of  Albany,  New  York. 


APOSTATICAL    SUCCESSION.  137 

But  Chalmers  was  a  good  and  a  most  competent  judge  of 
the  utter  folly  of  it.  Yet  well  I  know  that  the  dupes  of  that 
mendacity  are  not  to  be  taken,  even  with  the  fresh  salt  of 
the  covenant !  The  cool  atrocity  with  which  they  unchurch 
such  men  as  Chalmers,  and  millions  with  him  of  the  best 
saints  and  the  best  denominations  and  Churches  of  God  that 
ever  lived,  is  only  one  of  the  bitter  fruits  of  their  hypocritic- 
al and  contemptible  dogma  —  antichrist,  and  vile  assump- 
tion all  I 

Where  is  Chalmers  now  ?  In  heaven  ?  How  got  he 
there?  Did  he  open  the  postern  of  salvation's  castle,  and 
furtively  secure  an  entrance  ?  John,  10:1,  7—9.  Was  it  by 
"  uncovenanted  mercies,"  such  as  Judas  met  his  doom  abus- 
ing and  possessing  ?  If  those  impudent  churchmen  ever  get 
to  heaven  themselves,  which  demands  a  doubt,  how  will  they 
previously  repent  of  their  impious  wickedness  and  utter  folly 
in  their  present  insipid  ritualism,  and  schismatical  sectarian- 
ism, and  most  unprotestant  exclusiveness  !  Theirs  is  an  or- 
ganized monopoly.  No  such  spots  of  the  pit  appear  on  Chal- 
mers. Such  abomination  the  Bible  only  abhors.  He  went 
not  to  the  dark  ages  for  his  light ;  nor  to  paganism  for  his 
Christianity  ;  nor  to  Rome  or  the  British  Parliament  for  his 
authority  ;  nor  to  tradition  for  his  certainty  ;  nor  to  the  suc- 
cession of  Hildebrand,  Borgia,  Bonner,  Talleyrand,  Archbish- 
op Hughes,  or  any  such  rebukable  pretenders,  for  his  right  to 
preach  the  gospel.     Glory  to  God  alone. 

Some  may  resolve  this  and  all  similar  expressions  into  the 
alleged  rigidity  of  the  Scottish  theology  ;  and  I  reply  only 
that  truth  is  rigid  and  exclusive  of  all  alien  or  other  propo- 
sitions ;  and  were  it  otherwise,  or  apart  from  this,  the  En- 
glish especially,  that  are  wonted  to  groan  or  growl  at  the 
theology  of  their  North  British  neighbors,  are  not  the  ones 
exactly  to  correct  it,  especially  if  their  donatives  offered  should 
find  their  elements  for  its  correction,  in  their  own  diluted  the- 
ology of  semi-papal  sympathy  and  ritualizing  pomp.      The 


138        HEATHEN  TEUMPERY SOUTHWEST. 

Scotch  would  decline  their  assistance  and  their  favors  ;  and 
especially  would  Chalmers  act  on  the  principle, 

*«♦*♦*  Timeo  Danaos  et  dona  ferentes. 

I  dread  these  specious  patrons  and  their  lifts ; 

Most  dread  them  when  they  come  with  special  gifts. 

He  touches  on  this  indeed,  not  ambiguously,  in  one  of  his 
prelections  from  his  official  chair  to  the  arrested  and  con- 
fiding circle  of  ingenuous  youth,  the  students  in  divinity 
around  him  : 

"  About  our  doctrine,  however,  at  the  same  time,  I  feel  no 
intolerance  ;  and  have  occasionally  met  with  the  best  of  men, 
especially  on  the  other  side  of  the  Tweed,  who  shrink  from 
it  with  antipathy  almost  nervous,  and  that  certainly  par- 
takes much  more  of  the  sensitive  than  the  rational.  There 
are  many,  even  the  saintliest  and  most  devoted  among  the 
clergymen  of  England,  who  talk  with  the  sincerest  horror  of 
our  gloomy  and  repulsive  Calvinism.      ***** 

"But  if  there  be  degeneracy  among  us,  and  aught  is  to  ar- 
rest it,  it  will  not  be,  most  assuredly,  the  importation  of  its  the- 
ology from  England  ;  and  as  little  by  a  supply  from  the  South 
of  its  altars,  or  its  surplices,  or  its  gorgeous  candlesticks,  even 
though  aided  by  the  mystic  charm,  either  of  pulpits  with 
their  faces  to  the  southwest,  or  of  ministers  performing  some 
unknown  evolutions  with  their  backs  to  the  people.  Least 
of  all  will  the  figment  of  apostolical  succession  be  of  aught 
avail  against  the  chilling  influences  of  a  jejune  and  lifeless 
ministration." 

All  these  human  inventions  are  trumpery  and  huge  imper- 
tinence. How  much  religionizing  stupidity  it  requires  in  one 
to  imagine  that  God  can  be  propitiated  or  pleased  with  them ! 
Altars  indeed,  and  priests,  and  sensuous  symbols,  are  all  ab- 
rogated in  the  present  noble  and  spiritual  dispensation.  They 
are  superseded  now  by  their  substantial  archetypes ;  and  all 
the  appetence  that  tends  to  reproduce  them  is  only  blunder 
and  degradation,  in  the  nominal  worshipers  and  the  genuine 


BRITISH    ROMANIZING.  139 

ofienders  of  the  Almighty.  Their  way  is  more  Judaizing 
than  Christian,  more  in  retrogradation  and  heathenizing  pref- 
erences than  in  the  progression  of  our  glorious  Christianity, 
according  to  the  way  of  the  Great  Author  of  all  the  dis- 
pensations, and  the  Dread  Reprover  of  all  the  purblind  in- 
ventions and  modifications  of  our  flesh-pleasing  and  substi- 
tuted wisdom.  Hoivbeit  then,  token,  ye  kneiv  not  God,  ye 
did  service  to  them  that  by  nature  are  no  Gods.  BiU  7ioto, 
after  that  ye  have  known  God,  or  rather  are  knmvn  of  God, 
how  turn  ye  again  to  the  weak  and  beggarly  elements, 
ichereunto  ye  desire  again  to  be  in  bondage.  Ye  obsei've 
days,  and  months,  and  times,  and  years.  I  am  afraid  of 
you.  Yes,  they  observe  Christmas — though  Christ  was  not 
born  in  winter,  and  God  enjoins  us  to  commemorate  his  death 
not  his  birth  ;  and  Easter,  and  a  stereotyped  legion  of  human 
ordinances  of  the  same  foolish  sort. 


ADDENDUM  CHALMERI  MEMORANDIS. 

The  opinion  of  Chalmers  on  the  subject  of  slavery  may  be 
correctly  gathered  from  what  I  have  already  written ;  nor 
can  that  opinion  be  regarded  with  lightness  by  men  of  sense 
and  virtue  any  where.  The  relations  of  slavery,  and  of  war, 
and  of  government,  to  the  Church  of  God  involve  questions 
of  interest  to  all  Christians  ;  and  if,  in  this  age,  there  has 
existed  one  man  who,  above  others,  might  be  trusted,  as  well 
as  selected,  to  answer  them,  that  one  was  Chalmers.  I 
have  lately  met  in  his  published  works  with  some  expres- 
sions of  his  views,  which  I  deem  it  proper  here  to  subjoin. 
They  are  those  of  our  own  Dwight,  Richards,  Griffin,  Miller, 
Alexander,  Stuart,  and  others.  In  a  letter  to  my  own  ex- 
cellent and  learned  friend,  the  Rev.  Thomas  Smyth,  D.D.  of 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  dated  Edinburgh,  September  24, 
1844,  he  writes  thus  : 

"  I  do  not  need  to  assure  you  how  little  I  sympathize  with 
those  who — because  slavery  happens  to  prevail  in  the  South- 
em  States  of  America — would  unchristianize  that  whole  re- 
gion ;  and  who  even  carry  their  extravagance  so  far  as  to 
affirm  that,  so  long  as  it  subsists,  no  fellowship  or  intercourse 
of  good  offices  should  take  place  with  its  churches  or  its  min- 
isters. 

"  As  a  friend  to  the  universal  virtue  and  liberty  of  man- 
kind, I  rejoice  in  the  prospect  of  those  days  when  slavery 
shall  be  banished  from  the  face  of  the  earth ;  but,  most  as- 
suredly, the  wholesale  style  of  excommunication  contended 
for  by  some  is  not  the  way  to  hasten  forward  this  blissful 
consummation." 

The  publication  of  this  letter  led  to  a  demand  made  on 


HIS    VIEWS    OF    SLAVERY.  141 

Dr.  Chalmers  by  the  Anti-slavery  Society  of  Edinburgh,  for 
a  disclaimer  of  the  letter,  or  a  fuller  expression  of  opinion. 
This  he  gave  in  a  letter  on  American  slaveholding,  from 
vv'hich  the  following  extracts  are  taken  : 

'•  Our  understanding  of  Christianity  is,  that  it  deals  not 
with  civil  or  political  institutions,  but  that  it  deals  with  per- 
sons and  with  ecclesiastical  institutions,  and  that  the  object 
of  these  last  is  to  operate  directly  and  proximately  with  the 
most  wholesome  effect  on  the  consciences  and  character  of 
persons.  In  conformity  with  this  view,  a  purely  and  rightly 
administered  Church  will  exclude  from  the  ordinances  not 
any  man  as  a  slaveholder,  but  every  man,  whether  slave- 
holder or  not,  as  licentious,  as  intemperate,  as  dishonest. 
Slavery,  like  war,  is  a  great  evil ;  but  as  it  does  not  follow 
that  a  soldier  can  not  be  a  Christian,  neither  does  it  follow 
that  there  may  not  be  a  Christian  slave-holder.  *         * 

It  holds  experimentally  true  that  within  its  limits  *  * 
the  most  exalted  specimens  of  piety  and  worth  are  to  be 
found.  *  *  *  Neither  war  nor  slavery  is  in- 
compatible Avith  the  personal  Christianity  of  those  who  have 
actually  and  personally  to  do  with  them.  Distinction  ought 
to  be  made  between  the  character  of  a  system  and  the  char- 
acter of  the  persons  whom  circumstances  have  implicated 
therewith.  We  hope  that  our  Free  Church  will  never  devi- 
ate to  the  right  or  the  left  of  undoubted  principles.  But  we 
hope,  on  the  other  hand,  that  she  will  not  be  frightened  from 
her  propriety,  or  forced  by  clamor  of  any  sort  to  outrun  her 
own  conviction,  so  as  to  adopt,  at  the  bidding  of  other  parties, 
a  new  and  factitious  principle  of  administration,  for  which 
she  can  see  no  authority  in  Scripture,  and  of  which  she  can 
gather  no  trace  in  the  history  or  practice  of  the  Churches  in 
apostolic  times.  But  I  must  repeat  my  conviction  that  slav- 
ery will  not  be  at  all  shaken — it  will  be  strengthened  and 
stand  its  ground — if  assailed  through  the  medium  of  that 
most  questionable  and  ambiguous  principle  which  the  Aboli- 


142  WISDOM    OI'    THE    AMEKIC.W    BOARD, 

tionists  are  now  laboring  to  force  upon  our  acceptance,  ever 
that  the  slaveholding  is  in  itself  a  ground  of  exclusion  from 
the  Christian  sacraments.  *  *  *  Not  only  is 
there  a  wrong  principle  involved  in  the  demands  which  these 
Abolitionists  now  make  on  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland,  it 
is  hurtful  in  efl'ect.  Should  we  concede  to  their  demands, 
then,  speaking  in  the  terms  of  our  opinion,  we  incur  the  dis- 
credit, and  in  proportion  to  that  discredit  we  damage  our 
usefulness  as  a  Church,  of  having  given  in — and  at  the  bid- 
ding of  another  party  —  to  a  factitious  and  new  principle, 
which  not  only  wants,  but  which  contravenes,  the  authority 
of  Scripture  and  of  apostolic  example,  and,  indeed,  has  only 
been  heard  of  in  Christendom  within  these  few  years,  as  if 
gotten  up  for  an  occasion,  instead  of  being  drawn  from  the 
repositories  of  that  truth  which  is  immutable  and  eternal — 
even  the  principle  that  no  slaveholder  should  be  admitted  to 
a  participation  in  the  Christian  sacraments." 

The  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Mis- 
sions has  been  often  tried  with  ultraisms,  party  questions, 
and  zealous  extravaganzas,  at  its  annual  meetings,  as  well 
as  in  its  councils  and  its  operations  at  other  times,  both  at 
home  and  abroad  ;  and  hitherto  that  learned  and  dignified 
body  have  been  wise,  and  unawed,  and  incorruptible,  and  for 
the  most  part  entirely  unanimous  in  their  practical  and  their 
theoretical  positions  and  responses  on  the  subject,  to  the  ap- 
probation, and  even  the  admiration,  of  the  best  judges,  and 
the  most  intelligent  observers  of  their  administration,  both  in 
America  and  in  Europe — I  might  say  also  in  Asia  and  in 
Africa.  Dr.  Chalmers  was  distinguished  for  applauding 
their  wisdom,  as  the  results  to  which  they  came,  and  the 
"  deliverances"  they  gave,  at  Rochester,  in  1843,  and  at 
Brooklyn,  in  1845,  especially  pleased  him.  He  says,  "  We 
admire  the  practical  wisdom  of  the  American  Board  in  the 
deliverance  to  which  they  have  come  on  the  subject  of  slav- 
ery."    His  views,  indeed,  are  those   of  all  sober,  well-in- 


DUTY    OF    ALL    CHRISTIANS.  143 

formed,  and  impartial  theologians,  who  read  in  the  original 
and  wisely  interpret,  not  wickedly  or  stupidly  pervert,  such 
passages  compared,  to  mention  no  others,  as  i.  Cor.  7  :  21, 
20-22  ;  Eph.  6:5-9;  i.  Tim.  6:1-5.  The  kingdom  that 
is  not  of  this  xoorld  is  in  the  world,  however,  and  its  object 
is  not  primarily  to  mingle  with  existing  organizations  of  so- 
ciety, or  to  militate  against  them,  or  to  drive  forward  any 
temporal  reforms,  much  less  to  meddle  with  partisan  and 
political  opinions  and  issues.  It  is  legitimately  no  part  of 
its  way  to  declare  war  against  Ccesar,  even  though  a  pagan 
or  a  persecutor.  It  afiects  all  social  improvements  gradual- 
ly, and  potentially,  and  surely,  in  the  best  possible  way — 
THAT  IS,  INDIRECTLY  ;  by  Christianizing  individuals,  by  edu- 
cating them  for  heaven,  and  by  giving  them  on  all  subjects 
a  correct  and  a  purifying  public  sentiment.  Christianity 
comes  from  heaven  to  earth,  not  to  make  earth  its  home,  or 
to  lose  itself  by  sympathy  or  identification  with  the  ways  or 
the  wisdom  of  this  world,  but  to  prepare  persons,  an  exceed- 
ing great  multitude,  for  a  better  world,  them  and  their  off- 
sjyring  with  thevi,  by  making  their  characters  right,  and 
wise,  and  happy  in  the  sight  of  God  ;  givi7ig  thanks  to  the 
Father,  ivho  hath  made  them  meet,  fitted  them  to  be  jJar- 
takers  of  the  inheritance  of  the  saints  in  light.  Thus 
Christianity,  so  to  speak,  never  forgets  its  special  mission, 
and  never  lends  itself  to  any  other.  "The  happiness  which 
it  confers  in  the  present  life  are  blessings,  which  it  scatters 
by  the  way  in  its  march  to  immortality^."  And  those  who 
follow  in  its  train  may  well  afford  to  be  misunderstood,  and 
even  calumniated,  for  its  sake  ;  though  here,  it  is  true,  to  be 
distinguished  for  wisdom  and  rectitude,  is  certainly  to  suffer, 
in  some  way,  with  the  honors  of  a  living  martyrdom. 

With  fame,  in  just  proportion,  envy  grows ; 
And  he  who  makes  a  character,  makes  foes. 
Where  impulse  rules,  or  party  sways  the  mind, 
The  wise  are  scorned  by  men  sincerely  blind. 


INTERVIEW 

WITH  THE 

REV.  NATHANIEL   EMMONS,   D.D. 

FRANKLIN,  MASS. 


He  that  getteth  wisdom  loveth  his  own  soul ;  he  that  keepeth  understanding  shall  find 
good. — Ptov.  19  :  8. 

Esteeming  the  reproach  of  Christ  greater  riches  than  the  treasures  in  Egypt ;  for  he 
had  respect  unto  the  recompense  of  the  reward  — Heb.  11 :  26. 

Thou  Shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself— Matt.  22 :  39. 

Do  not  err,  my  beloved  brethren.  Every  good  gift  and  every  perfect  gift  is  from 
above,  and  cometh  doicnfrom  the  father  of  lights,  with  whom  is  no  variableness,  neither 
shadow  of  turning. — James,  1  :  16, 17. 

Christians,  who  are  united  in  the  belief  of  the  truth,  have  a  right  to  blame  those 
who  think  differently  from  them  upon  religious  subjects. — Dr.  Emmons. 

The  project  of  improving  the  Gospel  of  God  has  often  been  attempted,  and  in  no 
instance  with  success  ;  the  design  of  it,  indeed,  to  say  nothing  of  its  modesty,  or  its 
piety,  or  its  wisdom,  is  singularly  inconsiderate  or  uninformed  in  respect  to  the 
Architect  of  the  eternal  system,  and  his  only  negative  relation  to  all  possible  mistake 
or  imperfection,  in  whatever  he  does,  and  most  especially  as  the  author  and  avenger 
of  the  system  of  redemption. — Anon. 

fieTao-rpe'il'ai  to  euayye'Aioi'  ToC  Xpicrrov. — Gal.  1 :  7. 

ipevvare  to?  ypa(f>ai. — John,  5  :  39. 

******  laboratit 
Cum  ventum  ad  verum  est :  sensus  moresque  repugnant 
Atque  ipsa  utilitas  justi  prope  mater  et  lequi. — Hor. 
*  *  "  *        vi.x  credere  possia 

Quam  sihi  non  sit  amicus. — Hor. 


REV.  NATHANIEL  EMMONS,  D.D. 


This  distinguished  New  England  divine  has  made,  if  not 
an  era  in  the  theology  of"  our  country,  yet  a  permanent  and 
a  palpable  demonstration  in  its  theological  history.  There 
is  no  way,  perhaps,  in  which  we  may,  with  equal  facility 
and  pertinence,  at  the  present  day,  characterize  a  syllabus 
of  doctrinal  and  philosophical  sentiments  in  religion,  wheth- 
er we  approve  or  reprove  them,  as  to  say  that  they  belong  to 
the  system  of  Emmons. 

That  several  of  his  normal  principles  are  virtually  con- 
demned by  mainly  all  our  orthodox  divines,  by  such  men  as 
Witherspoon,  Dwight,  Rice,  Alexander,  Richards,  Stuart, 
and  in  Europe  by  Chalmers,  Hall,  AYatts,  Doddridge,  Howe, 
Owen,  Baxter,  and  others,  among  the  illustrious  dead  ;  and 
there  by  Candlish,  Cunningham,  Brown,  Symington,  Cooke, 
Edgar,  Morgan,  Harris,  Morison,  Cumming,  Liefchild,  James, 
Jay,  Raffles,  still  alive,  with  all  others  of  their  sympathy  and 
affinity  in  religion,  is  a  fact  most  certain,  as  well  as  most 
solemn  and  most  admonitory.  It  is  probable  that,  among 
all  the  faculties  of  our  own  theological  seminaries,  their 
learned  professors  would,  in  the  main,  unite  in  rejecting  those 
principles,  as  equally  deleterious  and  unscriptural,  and  there- 
fore false.  Such  schools  as  New  Haverr  and  Princeton,  how- 
ever differing  in  some  theses  of  metaphysical  theology,  are 
remarkably,  and  with  no  conspiracy  or  concert,  coincident 
here.  They  both  reject  the  system  of  Emmons  ;  and  the 
former  has  suffered  more  misrepresentation  and  more  cal- 
umny from  masked  batteries  on  that  identical  account,  un- 


148  a(;uki:ment  in   avei;sk)\. 

speakably,  than  the  latter  ;  Avhile  in  New  England  it  seems 
to  have  led  the  way,  with  true  Christian  tenacity  and  cham- 
pion daring,  in  oppugnation  and  explosion  to  that  system  ; 
and  to  have  derived  very  little  recognition  or  justice  of  laud- 
ation for  its  original,  indomitable,  and  exemplary  demon- 
strations, to  the  confusion  of  its  adherents  and  the  triumph 
of  the  truth.  Palmam  qui  meruit  ferat .  In  my  own  pro- 
foundest  conviction,  the  whole  Church  of  this  country,  and 
especially  of  New  England,  owes  a  deep  debt  to  Dr.  Taylor 
for  the  matter,  and  the  manner,  and  the  motive  of  his  agen- 
cy, in  his  able  and  steady  refutations  of  all  the  greater  princi- 
ples of  the  system  of  Dr.  Emmons.  And  I  am  glad  to  know, 
and  be  able  here  to  write  it,  whatever  some  may  think  of  it, 
that  such  a  triumvirate  of  theological  strength  and  eminence, 
however  diflering  possibly  in  other  things,  as  Alexander, 
Richards,  and  Taylor,  are  substantially  one  in  this  relation. 
Dr.  Richards,  as  I  have  full  reason  to  know,  bravely  did, 
and  sufl'ered,  and  periled  more,  perhaps,  than  any  other  man 
in  this  relation,  and  with  great  success,  from  his  first  induc- 
tion to  the  chair  of  theology  at  Auburn  to  the  end  of  his 
useful  and  devoted  life. 

On  the  other  hand,  Dr.  Emmons  has  qualities  as  an  au- 
thor that  elevate  and  distinguish  him,  justly,  among  the  or- 
thodox clergy  of  this  country.  He  lived  to  a  great  age, 
about  ninety-five  and  a  third  years  old  at  the  time  of  his 
death.  He  was  born  April  20,  0.  S.  or  May  1,  N.  S.  1745, 
about  three  months  after  Hannah  More  ;  and  he  died  Sep- 
tember 23,  1810.  He  commenced  his  public  labors  as  a 
preacher,  October,  17G9,  and  Avas  soon  settled,  once  only,  in 
the  stall,  virtually  the  same,  where,  after  discontinuing  his 
pastoral  responsibilities  for  several  years,  he  died,  at  Frank- 
lin, Norfolk  county,  Massachusetts.  What  a  pity  that  we  can 
not  always  get  the  good,  without  an  insidious  profusion  of  the 
evil,  in  the  concrete  mass  of  the  works  of  an  author  I 

From  the  first  of  my  graver  religious  impressions,  from  the 


FIRST    IMPEES8I0NS    OF    HIS    WORKS,  149 

year  1811  and  onward,  till  I  was  introduced  to  the  ministry, 
October,  1816,  the  works  and  the  views  of  Emmons  sur- 
rounded and  pervaded  me,  as  making  much  of  the  spiritual 
atmosphere  ill  which  I  lived,  and  moved,  and  had  my  be- 
ing. I  read  his  sermons,  received  them  as  ne-plus-idtra 
specimens  of  metaphysico-philosophical  divinity,  and  admired 
them  even  till  I  began,  in  professional  life,  to  try  their  prin- 
ciples, in  a  practical  way,  in  the  solemn  work  of  preaching 
the  gospel.  Here  I  studied  more  calmly  and  originally  the 
native  sense  and  the  correct  interpretation  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures. To  these  I  felt,  more  and  more,  that  all  theories 
ought  substantively  and  utterly  to  he  subordinated — and  this 
great  principle  I  feel  and  love  more  and  more  to  the  present 
day  I  Its  greatness  and  its  goodness  are  becoming,  with 
my  better  educated  judgment,  increasingly  appreciated  and 
avowed.  It  ought  to  be  the  deep  religious  aim  of  a  preacher 
to  study  the  truth  of  Scripture  in  its  own  inspired  originals, 
and  thence  to  derive  the  substance  of  all  his  pabulum  for  the 
pulpit  or  the  press.  God  will  not  allow  his  ministers  to  sub- 
stitute the  human  wisdom  for  the  divine.  It  is  spiritual 
adultery,  and  idolatry,  and  perfidy  in  the  highest  possible 
relations  of  moral  man.  Isai.  29  :  13,  14.  The  precept  of 
men  may  be  coincidently  right  ;  it  is,  however,  very  often 
deceptive  and  erroneous  ;  but  right  or  wrong,  it  is  no  fitting 
substitute  for  the  identical  word  of  God.  John,  17  :  17  ;  Pet. 
1  :  21-25  ;  Col.  2:6-9;  i.  Tim.  6  :  20,  21.  The  Scriptures 
have  their  circumstances,  their  incidents,  and  their  ancient, 
peculiar  costumes.  They  have  also  their  doctrines,  their 
facts,  their  relations,  their  connections,  their  proportions, 
their  styles,  their  methods,  and  their  glorious  harmonies,  both 
in  their  credenda*  and  their  agefida,f  as  legitimately  af- 
fecting our  minds  and  characters  in  religion ;  and  to  ascer- 
tain their  native  sense,  to  educe  and  verify  it,  to  teach  and 
vindicate  it,  is  the  grand  and  noble  function  of  intcrpreta- 
*  Things  to  be  beheved.  t  Things  to  be  done. 


150  HIS    PROTON    PSEUDOS. 

tion,  or  the  heimeneutical  science — a  science  which  our  great 
and  venerable  divines  of  the  former  century  pre-eminently 
needed  and  distinguishingly  lacked  I  Hence  their  metaphys- 
ics, their  polemics,  their  dogmatics,  and  their  inductive  and 
resultant  ethics,  in  religion,  became  at  once  the  medium  and 
the  discoloration  of  the  truth  of  God  in  their  ministrations — 
with  too  few  great  exceptions. 

Of  such  a  man  as  Emmons,  I  grieve  to  say  that,  while  I 
am  yet  among  his  admirers,  1  view  his  characteristic  doc- 
trines as  fundamentally*  false  and  bad — his  philosophy  as 
eminently  unscriptural,  and  his  system  as  speciously  and  de- 
plorably unsound.  Their  faults  and  their  offenses  can  not 
be  expiated  by  the  sleep  of  the  sepulchre  or  the  culmination 
of  his  general  living  or  posthumous  fame.  There  is  a  virus 
in  them  that  pervades  them.  They  have  a  tendency,  an 
influence,  a  sympathy,  and  a  drift,  as  well  as  a  very  taking 
speciousuess,  of  M'hich,  if  a  man,  and  especially  an  inexperi- 
enced student,  is  not  suitably  aware,  he  may  become  less  a 
beneficiary  than  a  pervert  or  a  victim. 

His  rrpdrov  tpevdog,  or  cardinal  error,  was  probably — his 
views  of  the  divine  agency,  its  nature,  its  extent,  and  its  final 
causes.  If  they  who  hold  those  views  come  not  to  the  ex- 
tremes of  pantheism,  fatalism,  and  idealism,  the  better  result 
must  not  be  credited  to  those  views,  or  to  their  logical  acu- 
men and  consistency,  by  whom  those  views  are  credited  or 
entertained.  Some  of  those  views  are  here  stated,  for  the 
proof  and  verification  of  which  I  am  responsible.  See  Em- 
mons's Works,  by  Dr.  Ide,  Boston  edition,  1842. 

1.  God  is  the  author  of  all  things,  sin  especially  included. 

2.  He  presei-ves  all  things,  material  and  immaterial,  by  a 
procreative  and  incessant  act,  just  as  he  began  the  same  act 
by  creation. 

*  This  in  a  sense  objective,  as  related  to  the  revealed  system ; 
not  subjective,  as  if  judging  the  spiritual  state  of  a  man — which  I 
w  nnld  never  wish  to  do,  even  in  thought. 


SYNOPSIS    OF    HIS    VIEWS.  151 

3.  Preservation  is  simply  creation  continued  ;  mind,  mat- 
ter, acts,  entities,  attributes,  motions,  relations,  universally 
included ;  as  procreated  incessantly,  each  of  them — or  they 
could  never  be  and  continue  at  all. — IV.  382. 

4.  It  is  best,  all  things  considered,  that  just  as  much  sin 
as  exists,  and  as  will  have  existed  eternally,  should  exist ; 
and  therefore  it  exists  in  the  measured  preference  and  by  the 
measuring  agency  of  God. 

5.  However  good  the  universe  might  be  without  sin,  it  i.s, 
all  things  considered,  and  as  a  whole,  deliberately  and  infi- 
nitely better  with  it. 

6.  God  intended  to  introduce  it,  to  this  verj'  end  ;  and 
hence  he  originated  it  in  fallen  angels,  and  in  fallen  men, 
and  in  every  instance,  as  the  necessary  means  of  the  greatest 
possible  good,  the  eternal  optimism  of  the  system. 

7.  Hence  our  submission  should  subjectively  correspond 
with  this  array  of  objective  theophany  and  glory ;  and  our 
submission  to  be  in  his  hand,  that  he  may  make  us  as  wick- 
ed and  as  miserable  as  he  sees  fit,  all  things  considered, 
should  be  at  once  superlatively  joyous  and  absolutely  uncon- 
ditional ;  amen,  alleluia  I  pure  piety,  heaven  on  earth  begun  I 
this — the  very  thing  I 

8.  If  men  dislike  this,  it  is  all  owing — not  at  all  to  their 
wisdom,  but  only  to  their  selfishness  ;  and  so  is  it  none  other 
than  impiety  and  upstart  rebellion ;  yet,  for  the  best  ends,  it 
is  produced  positively,  at  the  time,  in  them  by  God  himself 

9.  Selfishness  is  the  genus  generalissimutn  of  all  sin  ; 
and  self-love,  or  the  love  of  happiness  as  one's  own,  is  only 
a  modification  of  the  same  thing,  selfishness  :  and  fools  only 
affirm  or  believe  a  difference. 

10.  Disinterested  benevolence  is  the  only  true  virtue,  as 
the  grand  and  the  only  proper  antagonist  of  selfishness. 

Among  other  aspects  of  character,  I  was  wont  to  view  Dr. 
Emmons  as  a  very  unique  person,  and  so  as  an  intellectual. 
moral,  and  theological  curiosity.     As  previous  to  this  inter- 


152  1\'J'KK\  IlLW    WITH    E.MMUN!?. 

view  1  liad  never  seen  him,  and  hardly  thinking  it  probable 
that  he  could  continue  much  longer,  I  wrote  to  him  in  the 
summer  of  1838,  respectfully  announcing  my  expectation  to 
journey  toward  the  East  in  his  vicinity,  and  requesting  his 
permission  that,  stranger  as  I  was,  I  might  be  allowed  to 
visit  him.  He  wrote  a  reply,  courteous  and  prompt,  assuring 
me  that,  if  he  remained  "  in  the  body"  till  my  arrival,  he 
would  be  glad  to  see  me,  and  that  I  should  certainly  find 
iiiiu  at  home.  In  company  with  an  intelligent  and  worthy 
elder  of  ray  own  church,  Lowell  Halbrook,  Esq.  who  had 
Ijeen  born  and  reared  in  that  vicinity,  and  had  ever  held  Dr. 
limmons  in  very  high  estimation,  I  visited  him,  on  Saturday, 
August  11,  1838,  then  in  his  ninety-fourth  year,  and  only 
about  twenty-five  months  before  he  Jitiished  his  course,  Sep- 
tember 23,  1840. 

My  plan  or  design  in  this  visit  was,  in  many  respects,  va- 
riant from  what  actually  occurred  in  it.  To  argue  with  him ; 
to  engage  in  controversy ;  to  be  theologically  catechized,  or 
mipeached,  or  suspected,  never  once  entered  my  mind,  as  I 
now  remember.  Almost  half  a  century  my  senior  in  life,  I 
felt  deeply  the  awe  of  his  age,  his  fame,  and  his  approxima- 
tion to  eternity.  I  desired  to  see  the  theological  patriarch, 
to  converee  with  him,  and  to  hear  any  of  his  sayings — with 
no  idea  of  gainsaying.  Indeed,  I  had  the  idea  of  his  waning 
strength,  his  senility,  and  his  subdued  consciousness  of  the 
hastening  transition.  Besides,  an  event  that  had  its  place 
in  our  conversation,  and  shall  appear  in  this  narration,  had 
just  met  and  affected  me.  I  was  requested,  before  the  visit 
to  Dr.  Emmons  that  morning,  to  make  one  to  a  venerable 
layman,  only  two  years  his  junior,  and  then  confined  on  what 
seemed  to  be  the  bed  of  dissolution.  I  found  him  calm,  con- 
scious, and  humbly  happy  in  his  Savior.  Indeed,  the  moral 
odor  of  the  scene  was  hallowed,  "  quite  in  the  verge  of  heav- 
en." I  was  edified,  delighted,  instructed,  as  the  result;  and 
love  to  this  day  to  remember  it.     Such  intelligence,  script nr- 


COURTEOUS    AND    KIND    RECEPTION.  153 

alness,  and  practical  submission  to  the  will  of  God,  one  seldom 
sees  united  ;  where  hope  at  once  predominates,  and  soothes, 
and  purifies  the  soul ;  and  where  patience  has  a  perfect 
u-ork  to  the  glory  of  God.  Having  engaged,  at  his  request, 
in  prayer  and  thanksgiving,  at  the  bed-side,  with  its  honored 
mcumbent,  I  returned,  and  immediately  rode,  about  eight 
miles,  to  the  residence  of  Dr.  Emmons,  with  fresh  and  hap- 
py memories  of  that  solemn  spectacle,  which  Christianity 
alone  could  inspire,  and  which  so  honored  Christianity. 

"VYe  were  soon  introduced,  and  received  in  a  courteous  and 
easy  manner  by  the  venerable  man.  He  seemed  more  vig- 
orous and  agile,  as  well  as  cheerful  and  mirthful  in  his  man- 
ners, than  I  could  have  anticipated.  He  welcomed  us  in  an 
honest  and  open  style,  inquired  after  the  health  of  friends, 
and  with  considerable  vivacity  despatched  the  common  topics 
of  the  day.  I  assured  him  of  my  regret  that  I  had  never 
before  been  able  to  meet  him  personally,  especially  when  he 
visited  New  York,*  in  May,  1836;  adverted  to  his  uncom- 
mon age,  as  probably  the  oldest  clergyman  in  the  country, 
and  ended  by  saying  that,  in  other  respects,  he  was  properly 
no  stranger  to  me,  however  I  might  be  unknown  to  him. 
Then  our  dialogue  commenced. 

2.  I  have  heard  of  you,  Dr.  Cox,  almost  twenty  years  ago 
or  more  ;  ever  since  the  split  in  the  Young  Men's  Mission- 
ary Society  in  New  Y'ork.  [It  occurred  in  the  autumn  of 
1816.] 

1.  Q^uite  a  memorable  occasion  was  that  I 

2.  Y''ou  had  some  sharp  theological  shooting  on  both  sides, 
I  think. 

1.  We  had.  Those  scenes  have  passed,  though  not  their 
consequences. 

2.  Who  is  your  great  giant  there,  since  Mason  died  ? 
1.  We  have  none,  I  think,  to  take  his  place. 

*  The  only  time  in  his  life,  as  I  am  informed !  I  was  then  in  Au- 
burn, New  York. 

G  2 


154  FEW    SOUND    I'KEACIIERS,   HE    TUINKS. 

2.  His  views  were  verj'  diflerent  from  mine,  you  know. 

1.  Yes  ;  and  all  such  difierences  in  general  evince,  I  think 
the  imperfections  even  of  great  and  good  men. 

2.  The  truth  is  always  the  same. 

1 .  It  is  ;  yet  how  vary  our  perceptions  of  it  I 

2.  I  am  apt  to  think  there  are  very  few  there  among  you 
who  hold  the  truth  with  thoroughness  and  discrimination. 
Indeed,  I  know  of  one  only — just  one,  who  constitutes  the  ex- 
ception to  my  remark. 

1.  That  is,  you  knoio,  only  one  I  \Yell,  certain  it  is,  my 
good  sir,  that  your  acquaintance  with  the  evangelical  minis- 
try there  is  very  remarkably  limited,  as  you  admit.  Possibly 
there  may  be  more  scholars,  intellectual  giants,  and  worthy 
men,  among  them,  than  you  imagine  ;  holding  the  truth  with 
good  and  clear  intelligence  ;  eloquent  men  and  mighty  in 
the  Scriqyturcs. ;  faithful  pastors,  devoted,  holy,  exemplary, 
and  evidently  prospered  and  owned  of  God.  So  I  think  of 
them — although,  no  doubt,  there  may  be  one  Judas  among 
every  twelve  of  them ;  since  false  preachers  and  heretical 
corrupters  have  cursed  the  Church  of  Christ  in  every  age, 
with  the  costume  of  a  sheep  and  the  spirit  of  a  wolf;  and 
who  would  deceive,  if  it  xccre  possible,  the  very  elect.  Bless- 
ed be  God,  this  is,  in  his  guardianship,  eventually  impossible. 

2.  I  make  a  great  difference  between  general  orthodoxy 
or  generic  Calvinism,  and  that  theology  which  can  rightly 
discriminate ;  class  all  its  views  in  a  correct  system  ;  state 
arguments  and  objections  in  their  just  relations ;  and  hold 
all  the  doctrines  in  their  thoroughness  and  their  consistency, 
as  one  great  whole,  and  as  exclusively  the  truth. 

1.  This,  indeed,  implies  great  acumen,  and  great  erudition 
too.  Still,  it  leaves  the  question,  What  is  truth  ?  much  at 
large  and  undecided.  Men  might  agree  in  the  general  de- 
scription, yet  not  in  the  specifications  under  it. 

2.  Right.  And  hence  I  said  that  I  know  only  one  among 
you.  in  New  York,   who  exemplifies  the  character  of  thor- 


ASSAL'J/r  ;    rUANKLIN    vs.    NEW    YORK.  155 

ough,   discriminating,   and  correct,   as   a  theologian   and   a 
preacher.* 

1.  He  must  be  a  very  Abdiel,  according  to  your  eulogium. 

2.  I  learn,  Dr.  Cox,  that  you  are  not  well  pleased  with  my 
theology.  Now  that  you  are  here,  it  may  be  as  well  to 
render  a  reawn,  if  you  can,  for  your  difl'erence. 

1.  My  dear  sir,  I  had  no  such  thought  in  this  visit. 

2.  Still,  it  is  a  proper  way  to  spend  the  time,  and  I  must 
know  your  reasons.     I  shall  urge  my  right  to  them. 

1.  Why,  doctor  ?  Are  you  serious  ?  This  implies  we  know 
not  what  in  the  end. 

2.  Because  I  suspect  they  can  all  be  answered.  Many 
have  come  here  with  their  objections,  which  crossed  my 
threshold  but  once.  They  had  none  left  to  carry  away  with 
them. 

1.  I  might  prove  an  exception,  doctor. 

2.  Yes,  and  you  might  not.  If  you  difier  from  my  theol- 
ogy, you  ought  to  have  reasons  for  it ;  and  if  these  are  stated 
so  as  to  be  known,  they  might  be  answered. 

1 .  When  .T  think  of  the  diflerence  of  our  age,  doctor,  I  feel 
less  courage  to  meet  the  encounter.  Really  .your  mercurial 
vivacity  surprises  me,  however,  after  so  many  years  have  gone 
over  you. 

2.  Well,  be  not  too  modest.  Let  us  have  them.  You  need 
not  think  that  Franklin  is  going  to  New  York  to  learn  theol- 
ogy ;  New  York  must  come  to  Franklin. 

1.  So  you  say.  doctor.  Well,  here  I  am  then,  according 
to  your  wish,  at  Franklin,  and  ready  to  learn  any  thing  you 
can  teach  me,  on  two  conditions  only — 

One,  that  it  is  true  ; 

The  other,  that  it  can  be  proved  by  the  Bible,  soundly  in- 
terpreted . 

2.  Well,    I   agree   to   the   conditions,   though   the  latter 

*  The  name  of  the  individual  I  forbear  to  announce,  from  motives 
of  courtesy,  and  lest  it  might  be  misunderstood.     S.  H.  C. 


156  METHOD    OF    THEOLOGIZING. 

may  seem  a  little  ambiguous.     What,  then,  are  your  objec- 
tions  ? 

1 .  Really  I  feel  at  a  loss  to  begin,  especially  as  I  had  no 
thought  of  such  a  thing  in  this  visit.  I  may  be  found  in 
some  disarxay. 

2.  Well,  let  us  hear  and  see  them,  in  due  order. 

1.  There  is  a  primary  one,  sir,  which  perhaps  I  ought  to 
state  here.  It  respects  your  way  or  method  of  theologizing. 
I  object  to  it  as  utterly  wrong.  If  so,  your  other  aberrations 
may  be  its  offspring. 

2.  What  is  that  way,  think  you  ? 

1 .  You  bring  the  trained  logic  of  your  mind,  contempla- 
tive, to  investigate  what  you  apprehend  as  the  principia  of 
truth.  You  then  get  axioms,  aphorisms,  postulates,  synopses, 
parallelisms,  and  contrasts  of  all  degrees  and  sorts  ;  and  thus 
you  get  topics  into  system ;  "  make  joints,"  and  places  for 
them  ;  behold  the  congruity  and  coincidence  of  all  the  parts 
in  their  magnific  facade ;  and  have  the  whole  eclaircised  with 
definitions,  illustrations,  proofs,  objections,  refutations,  appli- 
cations, and  classifications,  until  the  entire  contour  is  fixed, 
and  finished,  and  furnished,  ready  for  use.  It  becomes  easy, 
then,  to  select  a  theme,  and  to  construct  a  discourse  from  it, 
on  principles  of  topical  homiletics  ;  and  as  easy  to  get  a  text, 
and  fix  it  in  place,  so  as  to  make  a  sermon.  Thus,  too,  all 
textual  or  expository  preaching  is  practically  precluded. 

2.  And  what  great  objection  have  you  to  such  a  way  ?  Is 
it  wrong  to  reason,  to  investigate,  to  look  at  things,  to  com- 
pare, to  construct,  and  so  arrange  and  use  the  results  obtain- 
ed ?  or,  to  make  a  system  ? 

1.  It  may  be  admitted,  to  some  extent,  and  in  a  subordin- 
ate way,  in  systematic  theology.  But  as  a  way,  it  is  neither 
the  first,  nor  the  last,  nor  the  best,  nor  the  main,  nor  the 
right  way,  in  my  view. 

2.  Must  a  man  surrender  reason  in  order  to  begin,  then  ? 
1.   Not  at  all,  only  use  it  aright.     The  oflS^ce-work  of  rea- 


INTERPRETATION    THE    UAY.  167 

son  iu  religion  is  great  and  definite  ;  but  by  mistake  or  per- 
version, it  becomes  an  infinite  mischief  to  the  souls  of  men 
and  to  the  cause  of  God.  It  is  not  the  province  of  reason  to 
invent  truth,  or  to  anticipate,  or  to  modify  it,  in  the  revela- 
tion of  God  ;  but  there  to  learn,  and  thence  to  teach  it. 

2.  What,  then,  must  we  do,  as  our  method  in  theologiz- 
ing ? 

1 .  Mainly,  study  that  revelation ;  study  it  for  our  prem- 
ises ;  study  it  in  its  inspired  originals  ;  study  it  with  honesty, 
with  candor,  with  learned  assiduity,  with  all  proper  auxil- 
iaries and  technical  helps,  and,  above  all,  with  prayer  to  its 
great  Author,  for  wisdom  liberally  imparted  ;  and  so  inter- 
pret it,  use  it,  follow  it,  and  feel  that  if  you  have  the  native 
sense  of  scripture,  and  only  as  you  have  it,  you  have  the 

TRUTH. 

2.  Do  you,  then,  condemn  metaphysics  ? 

1 .  When  they  dare  to  take  the  lead  in  theology,  condemn 
Ihem,  sir  ?  yes,  execrate  and  abhor  them  too  I  It  is  only  a 
proud  and  a  plausible  way  of  running  before  one's  leader,  and 
superseding  the  word  of  his  authority,  by  that  of  our  own  in- 
finitely inferior  wisdom.  It  is  only  in  their  abuse,  however, 
that  I  condemn  them  ;  which  abuse  is  oftener  perpetrated 
than  seen,  suspected,  or  confessed.  This  I  call  the  great 
learned  fiend  of  our  current  theology  in  some  places,  and  not 
of  yours  alone.  Only  put  the  truth  of  scripture  through  the 
great  alembic  of  our  metaphysics,  and  it  results  a  different 
thing  ;  its  identity  is  gone,  as  well  as  its  purity,  and  its  pow- 
er, and  its  divinity.  The  sanctions  of  God  are  gone,  those  of 
man  preponderate.     It  is  idolatry  I 

2.  But  what  is  your  substitute  ? 

1.  Interpretation  of  the  word  of  God;  where  man 
has  a  guide  and  a  rule  always  with  him,  and  his  u'Oi'k  be- 
fore him.  Metaphysics,  as  a  science,  are  related  to  every 
man's  own  various  acumen,  learning,  clarity,  vigor,  caprice, 
sophistry,  prejudice,  imagination  ;  and  of  itself  it  ultimately 


158  MESSAGE-BEARING    IN    PREACHING. 

determines  nothing,  or  nothing  with  religious  authority.  But 
says  God  to  every  preacher,  Son  of  man,  I  have  made  thee 
a  ivatchman  to  the  house  of  Israel ;  therefore  hear  the  icord 
at  my  mouth,  and  give  them  warning  from  me.  Preach 
to  them  the  preaching  tJmt  I  bid  thee.  If  any  man  speak, 
let  him  speak  as  the  oracles  of  God.  Some  men  might  re- 
ply, very  consistently,  "  Lord,  I  preached  dogmas,  after  my 
metaphysics  had  proved  them  to  be  vi'hat  I  think  really  and 
purely  true.  I  did  it  all  very  carefully  and  conscientiously." 
2.  You  seem  quite  severe  against  us. 

1.  Preaching  is  vv'ell  called  message-bearing.  Let  com- 
mon sense  determine  in  a  case  analogous.  You  send  a  mes- 
sage by  a  servant,  the  more  intelligent  and  well-bred  the 
better ;  yet  it  is  your  will  and  his  duty  that  he  bear  that 
identical  message,  and  none  other,  and  bear  it  as  yours,  in 
your  name,  unaltered,  and  pure  as  possible,  to  its  proper  des- 
tination, without  sufl'ering  change  or  taint  on  the  way.  He 
may  study  it ;  but  not  make  it,  in  that  way,  some  other  mat- 
ter, or  manner,  than  you  gave  him  to  convey  to  a  third  par- 
ty. Toward  God,  and  as  his  message-bearer,  how  ought  ev- 
eTy  minister  to  feel  the  supreme  obligation  that  is  on  him  to 
do  just  his  duty  I  Instead  of  this,  his  metaphysics  occupy 
him.  He  is  scholastic,  philosophical,  investigating  the  na- 
ture of  things  ;  and  not  a  thing  will  he  say  till  it  has  passed 
that  medium,  and  been  endorsed  current  by  that  authority. 
In  this  Avay  the  servant  gets  above  his  master  ;  the  minister 
eclipses  the  king.  Now,  sir,  such  is  my  confidence  in  hu- 
man nature,  in  human  wisdom  and  truth,  in  the  luminous 
powers  and  the  truth-eliciting  fecundity  of  the  mind  of  man, 
that  I  verily  believe,  coram  Domino,  that  not  a  man  exists 
on  his  footstool  that  is  fit  to  be  trusted  to  theologize  and  preach 
in  that  way.  He  will  inevitably  get  wrong,  and  attract  oth- 
ers deceptively  in  his  wake. 

2.  In  this  way,  then,  I  take  it,  you  think  I  have  commit- 
ted and  taught  errors. 


i 


OBJECTIONS    TO    HIS    WAV.  159 

1.  I  do,  sir.  You  say,  "  Begin  the  study  of  divinity  at  the 
root,  and  not  at  the  branches  ;  that  is  to  say,  begin  at  the 
first  principles  of  theology,  which  are  few  and  plain,  and  aft- 
erward trace  them  out  in  their  various  consequences,  rela- 
tions, and  connections."  I  should  say.  Take  the  Bible  ;  read, 
study,  analyze  it  ;  ascertain  what  its  sense  is,  what  it  teach- 
es. Never  mistake  its  popular  style,  or  its  figurative  state- 
ments, or  its  splendid  poetical  illustrations,  for  metaphysical 
truths.  Be  familiar  with  all  its  contents.  Let  the  word  of 
Christ  dicell  hi  you  richly.  Make  much,  and  more,  and 
most  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Be  mighty  in  them.  Let  your 
sermons  tell  the  people  for  you.  My  doctrine  is  not  mine, 
but  his  that  soit  me.  Then  are  you  morally  omnipotent, 
when  you  are  personally  nothing  ;  because  Christ  is  all,  and 
in  all,  the  Master,  the  Head,  the  Commander,  the  King. 

2.  Well,  and  what  are  the  errors  that  you  chiefly  allege  ? 


I  answered  by  stating  his  views  of  the  divine  agency,  of  sin, 
of  submission,  and  of  disinterestedness,  which  I  judged  to  be  in 
several  respects  unscriptural — though  all  right  by  his  meta- 
physics.    On  submission  as  unconditional,  I  objected. 

That  it  was  all  the  creation  of  his  system,  and  not  of  scrip- 
ture. 

2.  You  would  have  the  sinner,  then,  make  conditions  with 
his  God  ? 

1.  Not  at  all.  There  is  a  distinction,  founded  on  a  proper 
difierence,  between  submission  with  no  conditions,  and  sub- 
mission with  conditions  made  for  us  by  our  God.  If  God  has 
preoccupied  the  ground  with  his  own  perfect,  gracious,  un- 
changeable conditions,  and  published  them  to  the  world,  it  is 
no  more  piety  to  reject  them,  and  submit  unconditionally  in 
those  relations,  than  to  prescribe  our  own  conditions  or  con- 
tinue in  impious  rebellion.  The  phraseology  here,  of  unre- 
served submission  to  the  conditions  and  proposals  of  God,  I 
cordially  approve  ;  as  meaning  also,  by  necessity  of  the  ne- 


160  SELF-LOVE    AND    SELFISHNESS. 

gotiations  of  the  gospel,  an  unreserved  and  hopeful  acqxiies- 
cence  in  the  way  of  salvation,  as  copiouslj'  revealed,  and  of- 
fered to  us  in  the  gospel,  that  we  may  be  saved. 

2.  Well,  and  what  have  you  to  object  to  holy  affections  as 
disinterested  ?  You  are  no  open  advocate  for  selfishness, 
surely. 

1.  I  refer,  dear  sir,  to  your  views  of  it,  when  I  announce 
my  disclaimer.     Those  views  seem  to  me  erroneous. 

2.  I  hardly  ever  heard  an  objector  to  my  theology  who 
did  not  terminate  in  selfishness. 

1.  To  selfishness  I  am  exceedingly  averse.  If  you  resolve 
all  sin  into  it  as  a  genus,  it  is  not  at  all  to  this  that  I  object, 
but  to  other  views  of  yours. 

2.  "What,  then,  are  they  ? 

1 .  I  make  a  very  important  distinction  here  between  self- 
ishness and  self-love,  as  normally  and  cardinally  different. 

2.  I  say  they  are  just  the  same,  or  that  either  is  as  bad  as 
the  other. 

1.  By  self-love  I  mean  the  love  of  happiness  as  ours,  con- 
sidered as  an  instinct,  a  duty,  and  a  privilege  ;  and  as  prop- 
erly involving  no  sin  in  it  at  all.  Adam  had  it  before  he 
sinned.  Christ  had  it,  and  hence  it  was  self-denial  and  self- 
abnegation  for  him  to  die  for  us.     Saints  in  glory  have  it. 

2.  All  which  I  utterly  discredit  and  deny.  As  for  your 
distinction  between  self-love  and  selfishness,  it  is  wholly  gra- 
tuitous, and,  reposing  on  no  difference,  it  is  like  a  house  with- 
out a  foundation.     Who  makes  such  a  distinction  ?  who  ? 

1.  I  suppose  you  think  none  but  a  fool,  quoad  hoc,  could 
make  it.  Yes,  this  idea  is  not  new  to  me.  When  a  stu- 
dent, I  read  it  in  your  old  preceptor.  Dr.  Hopkins.  So  that, 
warned,  and  with  both  eyes  open,  I  pronounce  the  allegation 
false  and  the  distinction  true. 

2.  Then,  where  is  the  proof?     Give  us  proof. 

1.  Possibly  I  can,  my  dear  sir.  Without  it,  of  course,  I 
shall  ask  no  man,  surely  not  Dr.  Emmons,  to  believe  me. 


CONTROVERSY  ;    IN    FOR    IT.  161 

2.  If  you  can  prove  your  position,  I  shall  become  your  con- 
vert. 

1 .  See  if  I  do  not ;  though  not  much  drawing  on  meta- 
physics in  my  argument.  You  say  that  self-love  is  sin  ;  that 
it  is  contrary  to  the  law  of  God,  at  one  with  selfishness,  and 
impossible  to  be  proved  virtuous  and  right  in  its  own  nature, 
and  irrespective  of  all  consideration  of  degrees,  as  less  or 
more  ?  and  that,  in  contradistinction  to  all  self-love,  disinter- 
ested benevolence  is  the  summation  and  definition  of  virtue  ? 

2.  I  certainly  do  ;  that  is  just  what  I  say,  because  just 
what  I  think.  Let  us  see  how  you  can  prove  the  contrary, 
in  this  argument  of  New  York  against  Franklin. 

1.  Perhaps,  my  dear  sir,  you  may  find  that  the  issue,  to 
begin,  is  not  between  you  and — me,  but  between  you  and — 
Christ  I  The  argument  may  be  very  simple  ;  it  may  be  very 
brief;  but  it  will  suit  me  better  than  all  human  metaphysics. 

2.  Produce  it,  then  ;  the  issue  is  fairly  joined,  and  the  ques- 
tion is  fundamental. 

1 .  There  is  a  passage  of  truth  in  which  all  others  seem 
condensed  ;  on  which,  says  our  blessed  Savior,  hang  all  the 
law  and  the  frophetsi.  It  comprises  two  grand  precepts  : 
of  which  the  second  zs  like  to  the  first.  Thou  shall  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself;  that  is,  supplying  the  ellipsis,  as  thou 
lovest  thyself. 

Dr.  Emmons  :  Thou  shalt  not  love  thyself  at  all,  for  that 
is  sin  :  seK-iove  and  selfishness  are  both  the  same,  and  each 
is  only  sin. 

Inference,  Thou  shalt  not  love  thy  neighbor  at  all ;  for 
that  is  sin. 

2.  Why,  how  is  that  ?     Go  over  it  again. 
1.  I  will,  with  some  variation. 

Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself; 
Thou  shalt  love  thyself;  this  is  duty  too  ; 
Inference  and  measure.  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  also, 
equally  and  as  really  as  thou  lovest  thyself 


162  MAGNANIMOUS    CONFESSION. 

Now,  hold  to  your  thesis,  and  then  what  a  synopsis  I  Your 
metaphysics  have  refuted  all  the  laiv  and  the  propliets,  ay, 
and  the  Son  of  God  too,  with  a  witness. 

Thus,  my  honored  and  dear  sir,  it  is  plain  that  God,  mak- 
ing no  account  of  all  your  philosophy,  has  given  you  and  all 
men  a  perfect  measure  of  their  social  obligations,  in  the  sim- 
ple perfection  of  his  word  ;  and  what  has  become  of  it  ?  Is 
not  his  word  better  than  your  philosophy  %  Can  we  under- 
stand the  former  alone  through  the  medium  of  the  latter  ? 
In  respect  to  the  duty  of  each  to  every  other,  he  has  given 
us  the  proper  and  the  perfect  measure  ;  and  you,  by  your 
metaphysics,  have  knocked  the  bottom  out  of  it.  Now  it  is 
Uke  a  broken  cistern  that  ivill  hold  no  ivater.  Now  philan- 
thropy has  become  a  crime,  as  much  so  exactly  as  selfishness 
is,  and  as  certain — as  your  metaphysics  I  It  is  thus  that  ex- 
tremes meet,  and  that  the  icorld,  ay,  and  the  Church  too,  by 
wisdom  kneiv  not  God.  What  is  the  worth  or  the  virtue  of 
revelation,  if,  after  all,  we  must  go  to  sea  with  the  heathen, 
before  we  can  know  our  duty  and  our  salvation  ? 

2.  Why,  I  am  wrong ;  surely  I  am  wrong,  sir. 

This  he  solemnly  announced,  and  not  ironically,  as  I  at 
first  was  tempted  to  suspect.  It  was  a  moment  of  awe  and 
surprise.  I  could  say  nothing — he  said  no  more  ;  my  friend 
was  affected  even  to  tears. 

After  a  pause  of  some  length  and  meaning,  I  rejoined, 

1 .  Honored  and  dear  sir,  if  I  may,  I  would  now  say  three 
things  : 

(1)  I  am  wonder-struck  and  overwhelmed.  We  seem  to 
reach  a  result  "  portentous,  unexampled,  unexplained."  I 
never  anticipated  it  at  all,  and,  of  course,  never  intended  it 
in  form. 

(2)  The  thing  itself  is  strange  and  rare  in  history.  I  give 
you  the  credit,  and  God  the  glory  of  your  making  a  mag- 
nanimous confession,  the  like  of  which,  its  proper  parallel, 
I  never  knew  before  as  a  fact  in  history.     Here  is  an  ele- 


TERMINUS    OF    THE    ARGUMENT.  1B3 

ment  of  your  vaunted  metaphysics  and  your  own  unique  the- 
ology, that  you  have  held  and  preached  for  two  or  three  gen- 
erations ;  and  now,  in  your  ninety-fourth  year,  and  in  the  full 
exercise  of  your  faculties,  you  repudiate  it  as  false,  in  honor 
of  a  simple  saying  of  the  Son  of  God  I     I  only  add, 

(3)  Would  to  God  that  you  could  have  seen  the  grand  and 
the  simple  truth  of  scripture  eighty  years  ago,  and  never  de- 
parted from  it  I  What  a  different  influence  would  you  have 
exerted,  what  a  superior  ministry  would  you  have  exercised, 
what  a  better  course  would  you  have  run,  what  richer,  and 
lovelier,  and  nobler,  and  wiser,  and  more  useful  sermons 
would  you  have  preached,  what  a  change  for  the  better, 
and  what  a  great  change,  so  to  speak,  would  have  been  real- 
ized in  comparison  Avith  what  your  sermons  now  ai"e  ;  with 
your  tests  of  Christian  piety,  ultra-evangelical  and  impossible  ; 
with  your  rough  and  jagged  theological  horns  every  way  pro- 
truded, and  goading  the  simple  piety  of  the  Church  of  God  I 
This  my  soul  sincei'ely  thinks. 

It  may  be  inferred  that,  in  his  most  exemplary  confession, 
he  was  both  sensitive  and  sincere,  from  the  fact  that,  after 
it,  he  showed  no  inclination  to  pursue  the  controversy.  Ac- 
cordingly, I  also  declined  ;  and  after  a  few  more  remarks  on 
general  topics,  we  took  our  departure  as  respectfully  and  as 
tenderly  as  we  could,  and  with  his  subdued  but  well-sus- 
tained politeness  to  the  end,  uttering  its  valediction.  On 
some  accounts  I  regretted,  while  on  others  I  rejoiced,  that 
any  third  person,  and  especially  a  layman,  was  present  at  the 
interview,  fearing  that  it  might  embarrass  or  wound  him  in 
the  result.  I  certainly  endeavored  to  be  at  once  courteous 
and  reverential  on  the  one  hand,  honest  and  faithful  on  the 
other  ;  and  if  in  any  thing  I  failed,  contrary  to  the  spirit  of 
the  fifth  commandment,  I  am  ready  to  ask  pardon  for  it  be- 
fore God  and  man.  The  interview  was  so  singular  and  so 
remarkable,  and  also  so  very  instructive,  that  I  obey  my  own 
feelings  not  more  than  the  requests  of  others,  whom  I  respect 


164  SIMl'LE    BIBLK    PIETY. 

and  love,  in  making  this  registration  of  the  occurrence  and 
giving  it  to  the  public  ;  well  availed  of  the  attestation  of 
my  valued  friend,  who  was  my  companion  there,  whose  test- 
imony I  have  chosen,  in  anticipation,  to  provide  to  the  sub- 
stantial truth  of  the  narration,  and  which  will  be  foimd  at 
the  end  of  this  article.  Indeed,  without  such  attestation, 
in  reference  especially  to  his  confession,  as  above  related,  I 
should  almost  fear  to  stand  before  the  orthodox  theology  of 
New  England  and  affirm  the  fact.  Some  may  refer  it  to  in- 
cidental causes,  some  to  the  second  childhood  of  age,  some  to 
mistake  on  my  part  or  his  ;  I  only  say  that  I  believe,  as  does 
also  my  iriend  above  named,  the  facts  as  here  stated,  that 
is,  in  their  main  and  substantial  verity.  As  to  the  manner 
of  the  narration,  it  is  much  my  own  ;  it  has,  perhaps,  defects 
and  superfluities  ;  I  have  aimed,  however,  to  have  it  not  un- 
worthy of  confidence,  however  vulnerable  to  criticism. 

Our  promiscuous  conversation,  before  the  colloquy  just  re- 
cited, had  many  salient  points  that  were  characteristic  and 
worthy  of  recognition.     One  or  more  of  these  I  may  relate. 

The  old  disciple*  that  I  had  just  previously  visited,  and 
with  whose  ripe  and  evangelical  piety  I  was  so  gratefully 
impressed,  frequently  recurred  to  my  thoughts,  and  that  in  a 
way  suggestive  as  well  as  agreeable.  I  could  not  avoid  the 
contrast  between  piety  trained  by  the  Bible,  with  common 
sense,  spiritual  experience,  faith,  prayer,  and  hope  ;  and  that 
artistic  and  techiiical  sort,  which  metaphysics,  clear  and  cold 
as  an  arctic  day  in  December,  yet  affecting  to  shoio  to  us  a 
more  excellent  tray,  is  fitted  or  able  to  produce.  His  will- 
ingness to  die  ;  his  hope  of  heaven ;  his  trust  alone  in  Christ ; 
his  simplicity  of  submission ;  his  prayer  for  patience ;  his 
sense  of  personal  un worthiness  ;  his  confession  of  sin  ;  his  fear 
of  desiring  too  much  to  be  with  God ;  his  joy  in  the  salva- 
tion of  the  gospel  ;  his  devout  meditation  ;  and  his  rich  yet 
simple-hearted  love  for  the  Savior,  as  dying  for  him,  as  inter- 
*  Captain  Benjamin  Shepard,  of  Wrentham. 


THE    DOCTOR'h    HOPR    OF    IIFCAVfiN.  165 

ceding  for  him,  as  never  leaving  or  forsaking  him,  as  loving 
him  with  an  everlasting  love,  and  as  ruling  over  all,  mighty 
to  save,  never-changing,  all-adorable  ;  these  remembered  traits 
affected  my  mind,  and  induced  the  following  dialogue  : 

1.  There  is  one  question.  Dr.  Emmons,  which,  if  you  allow 
the  freedom,  I  would  respectfully  venture  to  ask. 

2.  Ask  it,  sir,  with  freedom. 

1.  You  have  lived  long,  wrote,  and  read,  and  thought, 
and  preached,  and  prayed  much,  and  probably  may  soon  be 
called  to  the  world  of  spirits  ;  how,  then,  do  you  feel  about 
salvation  ?  how  does  heaven  appear  to  you,  or  what  think 
you  of  it  ?  Does  it  seem  sure  and  desiiable,  as  well  as  prox- 
imate to  your  experience  ? 

2.  You  wish  to  know  what  I  think  about  heaven  and  sal- 
vation ?  about  my  own  being  saved  ? 

1.  I  do,  sir,  if  you  please  ;  I  desire  to  know  that  exactly. 

2.  Well,  then,  I  will  tell  you.  I  think  that,  if  I  am  never 
saved,  and  never  get  to  heaven,  others  will. 

He  spoke  this  with  deliberation  and  emphasis.  I  heard 
his  words,  waited  for  more,  thought  the  sentence  incomplete, 
and  was  surprised  to  see  that  it  was  finished. 

1.  Is  this  all,  sir  ? 

2.  Yes  ;  what  need  of  more  ?  what  could  I  say  better  ? 
1.  I  can  easily  tell  you — Jiaving  a  desire  to  depart  and 

be  loith  Christ,  i.chich  is  far  better .' 

I  can  not  well  recollect  what  followed  ;  but  view  this  an- 
swer as  the  logical,  uncomfortable,  and  jejune  result  of  his 
religious  metaphysics.  No  rejoicing  in  hope;  no  full  as- 
surance  of  hope  ;  no  consciousness  that  could  sa-y,  for  me  to 
live  is  Christ,  and  to  die  is  gain — and  no  self-love  I  No, 
not  a  particle  of  that  metaphysical  sin  I 

If  you  say  it  was  his  humility,  he  felt  his  atomic  insig- 
nificance, and  was  too  modest  to  aver  his  .certain  glorifica- 
tion ;  I  then  reply.  It  is  not  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit,  but  of  his 
own  philosophy.     Isai.  30  :  1  ;  Mic.  2:7;  Eph.  5  :  8-10. 


1G6  THE    I'ROrKK     Httl'U    OK    Clllt I8TI ANS. 

This  is  his  hope,  and  all  of  it.  I  never  read  of  such  a  hope 
in  all  the  scriptures.  It  is  as  unlike  the  wisdom  of  the  Bi- 
ble, as  the  first  chapter  of  Ephesiaas  is  other  than  a  theorem 
in  Euclid  ;  or  as  a  beautiful  flower  is  diflcrent  from  the  Au- 
tocrat of  France  or  the  Queen  of  Madagascar.  It  was  the 
utterance  of  a  mere  metaphysico-hypothetical  truism,  and 
about  as  pertinent  as  if  he  had  said,  Robinson  Crusoe  cared 
very  little  either  for  democratic  progress  or  for  the  recent  dis- 
coveries in  astronomy.  It  is  not  to  be  praised  because  Dr. 
Emmons  said  it ;  and  apart  from  such  a  reverent  or  filial 
consideration,  it  ought  to  be  rejected  with  religious  indigna- 
tion. What  could  I  say  better,  indeed  !  The  only  credit 
due  for  it  is — it  is  consistent.  It  is  the  starved  and  imbecile 
symbol  or  epitome  of  his  system  and  his  theology.  It  is  not 
the  result  of  the  gospel  at  all.  Christian  hope  may  be  de- 
fined— the  authentic  expectation  and  joyous  desire  of  future 
good,  resting  on  Christ  alone  for  its  basis,  and  honoring  scrip- 
ture alone  for  its  medium,  in  which  one's  character  becomes, 
by  the  grace  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Comforter,  the  subject- 
ive counterpart  of  all  the  exceeding  gi'cat  and  jyrecious  py-om- 
ises  of  the  gospel,  received  objectively  as  revealed,  and  real- 
ized subjectively  by  faith  in  their  Author.  Let  any  unsophist- 
icated person  consult  those  promises,  and  then  ask  whether 
the  counterpart  of  them  can  be  any  thing  like  this — If  I  am 
not  saved,  others  ivill.     The  gospel  is  not  responsible. 

At  another  moment,  as  we  were  approaching  the  severer 
part  of  our  conference,  he  remarked  that  the  presumption 
was  against  my  system,  and  in  favor  of  his  system  ;  since  his 
was  so  purely  unselfish,  so  illustriously  disinterested,  that 
mine,  in  the  contrast,  must  appear  inferior  and  wrong,  as 
just  the  opposite,  or  nearly  so,  and  therefore  as  interested  and 
selfish. 

1 .  To  that,  doctor,  I  not  at  all  assent.  The  truth,  I  think, 
would  well-nigh  reverse  your  statement.  I  deny  that  there 
is  any  selfishness  in  my  system  at  all,  especially  because,  in 


SELFISH    DISINTERESTEDNESS.  167 

your  sense  of  the  phrase,  I  have  no  system.  It  is  my  high 
aim  to  learn  the  system  of  God,  to  know  that,  and  to  repu- 
diate and  religiously  scorn  every  other.  My  hope  would 
wither,  and  my  soul  collapse  in  stormy  agony,  if  I  thought 
my  hope  was  in  any  other  system  than  simply  that  of  God. 
But  as  to  yours,  I  think  that  you  well  call  it  so  familiarly 
"  my  theology."  A  man  ought  to  own  what  he  makes.  Yours 
is  all  or  mainly  your  own  architecture.  Now,  who  called 
you,  or  any  other  uninspired  man,  to  make  a  system  of  theol- 
ogy, instead  of  simply  learning  and  taking  what  God  made 
for  us  all,  and  revealed  to  us  all,  as  the  glorious  gospel  of 
the  blessed  God  ? 

For  one,  I  am  cordially  willing  to  "receive  that  of  God 
which  I  study,  but  never  made,  and  never  wish  to  alter  or 
improve,  as  the  only  system  that  has  a  right  to  be,  because 
it  represents  realities  as  they  are,  for  his  glory  and  our  good, 
and  because  it  is  his  system.  As  to  yours,  I  think  that  you 
have  made  one  for  yourself,  which,  as  wholly  supererogatoi-y 
and  fabricated,  is  also  a  selfish  action  or  work,  its  very  dis- 
interestedness being  elaborately  a  selfish  creation  of  your  own. 
This  is  honestly  my  opinion ;  and  I  have  seen  the  system 
work,  and  seen,  as  well  as  felt,  its  evil  fruits  in  some  high, 
and  others  not  high,  places  of  the  Church.  Some  of  the  most 
selfish  ministers  I  ever  knew,  so  viewed  by  all  their  brethren, 
had  adopted  your  system  con  amore,  and  were  so  given  to 
prate  professionally  against  self-love,  and  in  commendation 
of  their  moon-struck  abstraction  of  disinterested  benevolence, 
that  it  became  with  them  at  once  a  hobby,  a  dotage,  and  a 
degradation,  as  of  them  a  proverb  of  scorn. 

WTiere  yet  was  public  virtue  ever  found 
Where  private  was  not  1    Can  he  love  the  whole, 
WTio  loves  no  part  \  he  be  a  nation's  friend. 
Who  is  in  truth  the  friend  of  no  man  there  1 

The  old  maxim  of  the  law  is  beautifully  philosophical,  be- 
cause ultimately  scriptural :  sic  uteie  tuis  ut  non  alie?ia 


168  Tur.  cHii'.r   knd  ok   ma\. 

ladas ;  so  use  your  own  as  not  to  injure  what  belongs  to  an- 
other. Now  here  we  liave  a  fine  criterion.  It  is  coincident, 
and  that  subUrnely,  with  the  law  of  God.  To -seek  our  own, 
so  as  to  mar  or  injure  what  belongs  to  another,  is  selfishness. 
To  seek  our  own,  in  coincidence  with  another's  interests, 
rights,  and  possessions,  and  to  love  both  in  consistency,  is 
moral  rectitude.  To  make  our  own,  as  an  object  of  love  and 
pursuit,  sinful,  and  to  love  others  with  no  sell-love  at  all — 
but  only  to  include,  perhaps,  as  a  unit  among  millions,  what 
is  our  own,  this  is  Emmonsism. 

Now  suppose  that  every  person  should  seek  his  own  sal- 
vation, as  God  plainly  requires  ;  and  suppose  they  should  all 
find  it  and  love  it,  I  should  like  to  know  whose  interests  in 
the  universe  could  be  injured,  or,  rather,  not  promoted  by  it  ? 
Thus  Cowper,  pleading  for  the  Christian  against  the  hostile, 
and  caviling,  and  envious  worldling,  expresses  it  well  : 

Forgive  him  then,  thou  bustler  in  concerns 
Of  little  worth,  a  trifler  in  the  best. 
If,  author  of  no  mischief,  and  some  good, 
He  seek  his  proper  happiness  by  means 
Which  may  advance,  but  can  not  hinder  thine. 

Thus  it  is  a  fact  worthy  of  note,  that  Dr.  Emmons  was 
wont,  on  this  same  ground  of  disinterestedness  mainly,  to  ac- 
cuse the  answer  to  the  first  question  in  the  Shorter  Cate- 
chism of  selfishness  and  absurdity.  The  chief  end  of  man 
IS  TO  GLORIFY  GoD,  AND  TO  ENJOY  HLM  FOREVER.  His  char- 
acteristic comment  here  was  this — the  former  branch  of  the 
sentence  is  well  enough,  the  latter  is  selfishness  and  absurd- 
ity. Of  this  one  of  his,*  aftervv'ard  one  of  my  own  intelli- 
gent parishioners  informed  me. 

Some  of  us  deem  it  an  answer  that  can  not  easily  be  me- 
liorated by  all  the  system-makers  in  the  world,  and  are  con- 
vinced that  all  of  the  selfishness  and  the  absurdity  that  per- 
tains to  it  results  latently  or  overtly  from  the  erring  meta- 
•  She  then  an  excellent  widow,  now,  I  trust,  a  glorified  saint. 


SIN     BAD,    AI-L    THINGS    CONSIDRKKI).  109 

physics  of  its  oppugiiers.  This,  however,  though  important 
as  well  as  true,  is  a  lesson  which  some  are  too  old  to  learn, 
and  which  others  are  so  habituated  in  false  philosophy  as 
never  to  appreciate.  Our  young  divines  and  our  youthful 
multitudes  ought  to  be  started  right  in  their  career,  or 
error  may  captivate  them  all  their  days,  and  the  hope  of  a 
reformative  opslmathy  may  prove  as  vain  as  the  mythic  ef- 
forts of  the  ancient  giants  to  pile  Ossa  upon  Pelion,  in  ex- 
pectation by  such  means  to  Scale  the  habitations  of  the  gods. 

The  metaphysic  qualifier,  or  distinction  between  a  thing 
desired  or  pursued,  "  in  itself  considered,"  or  "  all  things  con- 
sidered," figures  largely,  or  rules  latently  and  insidiously,  in 
Emmonsism.  It  is,  when  rightly  applied,  a  valid  and  useful 
distinction.  For  the  same  reason,  it  becomes,  in  other  rela- 
tions, a  gi-eat  blinder  to  the  eyes,  and  a  deceptive  perverter 
to  the  ways  of  men.  Thus,  according  to  his  system,  my  sin 
is  bad,  in  itself  considered,  since  it  breaks  law  ;  but  it  is  good 
and  desirable,  all  things  considered,  because  it  is  an  immense 
and  a  necessary  benefit  eternal  to  the  universe.  In  the  former 
respect  God  hates,  in  the  latter  he  loves  it ;  in  the  one  we  are 
to  be  sorry  for  it,  in  the  other  glad  and  thankful. — iv.  371- 
37 G.  When  God  gives  law  to  men,  that  law  is  so  the  ex- 
ponent of  his  re  ipsa  will,  that  he  desires  them  to  keep  it 
always  in  the  former,  but  desires  them  to  break  it  always  in 
the  latter  respect,  in  such  form  and  in  such  degree  exactly 
as  theocratically  becomes  history  in  the  event ;  sin  being,  in 
every  such  instance,  pro  tanto  et  pro  tali,  the  necessary  means 
of  the  greatest  good  to  the  eternal  universe. 

However  good  some  men  may  be,  in  spite  of  certain  inci- 
dental and  exceptional  things  in  their  system,  these  things 
inhere  organically  in  the  system  of  Emmons,  and  they  are, 
as  misrepresentatives  of  God  and  his  system,  horribly  false  and 
infinitely  abominable  I  Coram  Deo,  et  in  judicii  diem,  et 
scio  et  scribo.     I  denounce  them  as  evil,  and  eminently  evil. 

A  young  Emmonsite,  full  of  light  and  zeal,  and  very  full 
H 


170 


A    LAW-CONDEMNING    DIAGRAM. 


of  assurance,  once  made  a  diagram  to  illustrate  this  two-fold 
and  contrary  relationship  of  sin,  somehow  thus  : 


A  square,  as  a 
perfect  figure,  rep- 
resents the  universe. 
Whatever  line  of  ac- 
tion coincides,  as  a 
parallel,  with  its  per- 
pendicular or  its  hor- 


/- 


-7^ 


^ 


izontal  lines,  coin- 
cides also  with  the 
good  of  the  universe. 
The  line  L  repre- 
sents law  ;  those  S 
represent  sin  ;  those 
H  represent  holiness. 


Thus  S  is  sin  in  every  case,  in  itself  considered,  because  it 
crosses  or  transgresses  law ;  but  it  is  right,  all  things  consid- 
ered, because  it  coincides  with  the  lines  of  the  universe,  and 
so  promotes  its  good.     He  was  answered, 

(1)  But  the  lines  H  are  wrong,  for  the  same  reason  ;  be- 
cause, though  coinciding  with  law  as  parallels,  they  contra- 
vene the  harmonies  of  the  universe,  as  not  parallel  with  those, 
but  transgress  them  ;  that  is,  they  violate  the  greater. 

(2)  The  law  is  wrong,  for  the  same  reason  ;  it  is  contrary, 
and  transgressive  to  all  the  higher  and  greater  parallels  ;  it 
is  itself  sin  against  the  universe.  The  old-fashioned  idea, 
however,  is,  that  the  lata  is  holy,  and  the  commandment 
holy,  and  just,  and  good 

He  paused,  as  if  taking  time  to  consider,  where  we  leave 
him,  to  manage  his,  instead  of  Euclid's,  elements  alone  ;  and 
remark,  that  if  sin,  in  any  relation  that  it  sustains,  is  not  evil, 
and  only  evil,  and  that  continually,  we  own  that  we  know 
nothing  of  the  theosophy  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Nor  is  the 
view  of  Emmons  identical  at  all  with  that  of  Calvin.  It  is  not 
Calvinism,  but  hypercalvinism.  That  magnificent  Reformer 
made  God  not  at  all  such  an  agent,  although  supremely  and 
prosperously  regnant  in  the  throne  of  eternal  providence.  His 
treatise  proposes  to  show  his  agency  "  without  stain,"  and  to 
avoid  the  abhorred  result  of  predicating  of  God  that  he  is  the 
author  of  sin.  His  doctrine  is  limited  and  guarded,  as  his 
idea  was  plainly  and  laudably  variant ;  thus,  causa  [peccati] 


EMMONSISM    NOT    CALVINISM.  171 

extra  hiimanam  voltintatcrn  quaRrcnda  non  est,  ex  qua  radix 
mali  surgit ;  in  qua  fuudauiciitiim  regui  Sataiia^,  hoc  est,  pec- 
catum,  residet. — lust,  book  ii.  chap.  iv.  secrt.  1,  2. 

And  he  shows,  also,  that  the  idea  of  God  as  the  author  oi" 
sin  is  to  be  justly  avoided  in  the  argument  ;  nor — Deum  mali 
auctorem  pra;dicemus — should  we  make  the  predicament  to 
call  him  the  author  of  evil. 

I  say,  therefore,  that  the  peculiar  views  of  Emmons  are  not 
Calvinism  ;  and  that,  so  to  denominate  them,  however  com- 
mon or  specious  it  may  be,  is  only  another  specimen  of  pseu- 
donymous titles  in  theology,  by  a  very  old,  if  not  "  a  weak 
invention  of  the  enemy,"  to  superinduce  on  error  some  of  the 
sacred  sanctions  and  associations  of  the  truth,  and  thus  smug- 
gle it  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Were  Calvin  now  living 
among  us,  as  he  was  in  Geneva  three  hundred  years  ago,  I 
am  sure  he  would  reject  and  denounce  the  system  of  Em- 
mons with  lightning  and  thunder^  that  would  leave  its  im- 
pression on  all  Christendom  and  all  posterity.  It  would  ap- 
pear to  him  as  misrepresentation,  if  not  caricature,  of  the 
system  that  took  his  confidence  and  bears  his  name.  We  say 
of  the  symbols  of  faith  of  the  Westminster  Assembly,  now  for 
a  century  and  a  quarter  nearly  adopted  by  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  these  United  States,  that  we   receive  them  as 

CONTAmiNG   THE   SYSTEM    OF  DOCTRINE   TAUGHT  IN   THE  HoLY 

Scriptures.  But  no  Emmonsite  can  properly  say  the  same  ; 
nor,  nostra  jiidicio  solcmni,  ought  any  Presbytery  to  allow 
such  an  errorist,  such  a  perverse  and  alienated  preacher,  to  be 
matriculated  as  a  minister  of  our  Church.  In  his  preliminary 
examination,  his  principles  ought  to  be  soundly  ascertained  ; 
and  if  so  tainted  and  characterized,  he  ought  not  to  be  ap- 
proved, nor  his  examination  sustained,  nor  his  ulterior  pur- 
poses realized,  nor  his  request  allowed  to  be  accepted  in  our 
connection  as  a  Presbyterian  minister.  We  can  not  at  all 
consistently  sufi'er  such  incongruities  and  moral  improprieties, 
with  our  sanction,  in  the  Church  and  the  ministry  of  God. 


172  ESOTERIC    WISDOM. 

Suppose  I  can  not  tell  the  mode  of  a  thing,  shall  I  there- 
fore the  less  believe  the  fact  of  a  thing  ?  Modes  and  es- 
simces  are  mainly  a  terra  iticognita  to  men,  especially  to  one 
wlio  has  a  microscope  of  his  own  invention,  through  which 
his  optics  are  exhilarated  as  with  the  consciousness  and  the 
illusion  of  philosophic  vision.  Some  men  are  so  short-sight- 
ed tliat  they  can  not  see  to  the  limits  of  human  knowledge, 
and  lience  conclude  that  those  limits  exist  not.  To  know 
how  the  will  oi"  the  immaterial  tenant,  the  soul,  can  inhabit 
and  actuate  the  machinery  of  the  material  tenement,  the  body, 
to  write  a  letter,  or  to  wield  a  sword,  or  to  touch  with  skill 
some  sweet  instrument  of  music,  all  real  philosophers  know 
lo  be  exactly  impossible,  in  our  present  state  of  being.  But 
the  facts  of  the  case  every  one  knows  that  he  knows,  with 
or  without  philosophy,  and  with  or  without  a  microscope — or 
system  of  his  own  metaphysics. 

Now  it  seems  that  the  system  in  question  has  its  chief  af- 
fectation here — it  can  tell  how  things  are,  how  they  move 
or  act,  how  it  is  possible,  and  how  it  is  impossible  ;  so  that, 
without  such  system,  a  man  can  neither  tell,  nor  know  how  I 
Hence,  in  this  important  knoM'ing,  the  system  is  a  theologico- 
metaphysical  novum  organum,  and  a  sine  qua  non  at  that, 
with  all  right  philosophers.  The  word  yvcoaig  was  not  more 
potential  or  central  with  the  ancient  Gnostics.  • 

A  friend  of  mine,  an  original  thinker  and  a  gifted  lawyer, 
who  was  then  an  acute-angled  and  sharp-pointed  Emmonsite, 
but  afterward  saw  through  the  system  and  piously  renounced 
it,  once  related  to  me,  with  high  approbation  at  the  time,  the 
following  conversation,  as  a  part,  that  he  had  with  Dr.  Em- 
mons, whom  he  visited  with  reverence  bordering  on  adora- 
tion.    He  said, 

The  doctor  asked  me,  after  I  had  told  him  my  views  and 
how  I  admired  his  theology,  if  I  knew  why  it  is  that  they — 
he  called  them  Hopkinsians  in  the  argument — are  ai'raid  of 
no  other  religionists,  and  why  all  other  religionists  are  afraid 
of  them  ? 


GREAT  ANSWER  TO  A  GREAT  aUESTION.     173 

3.  I  answered,  No,  sir,  I  do  not  ;  nor  am  I  aware  that 
the  fact  is  as  yon  state  it.      Arc  they  all  airaid  of  us  ? 

2.  Yes,  and  Hopkinsians  are  afraid  of  none  of  them.  And 
there  is  a  good  reason  for  it. 

3.  Well,  doctor,  I  confess  this  is  a  new  view  of  the  sub- 
ject.    At  least  I  never  thought  of  it  before. 

2.  The  doctor  rejoined,  The  reason  of  it  is  plain,  and  good, 
and  true,  accounting  honorably  for  the  fact.  It  is  this  :  Hop- 
kinsians understand  all  other  religionists,  and  see  through 
their  system  ;  and  other  religionists  do  not  understand  Hop- 
kinsians, or  see  through  their  system. 

3.  The  lawyer  added  to  me  that  he  was  sti'uck  with  the 
boldness  and  the  grandeur  both  of  the  fact  and  the  reason, 
and  that  he  could  never  forget  or  cease  to  admire  it. 

The  latter,  however,  he  cordially  did,  some  years  after- 
ward, by  the  help  of  some  of  the  eye-salve  of  Christ.  I  re- 
late the  narrative,  because  so  exceedingly  characteristic  both 
of  the  system  and  its  author.  It  is,  however,  a  glaring  in- 
stance of  the  2)etitio  j^rincipii,  to  say  nothing  of  its  modesty. 
^^^lere  is  there  any  proof  of  the  alleged  fact  of  universal  fear 
on  one  side,  and  none  on  the  other  ?  Where  any,  that  the 
reason  of  it,  if  it  were  fact,  is  true,  apart  from  his  modest  as- 
sertion ?  What  excessive  vanity  in  reference  to  his  system 
of  theology  I  And  just  so  his  out-and-out  disciples  every 
where  view  it,  as  the  to  ttov,  the  instar  omnium  of  all  re- 
ligious wisdom. 

My  own  conviction  of  the  system  is,  that  it  often  tells  what 
it  does  not  know,  often  what  is  false,  and,  as  a  medium  of 
theological  exposition  and  enforcement^  is  a  vile  perverter  of 
the  truth  of  God  ;  that  facts  with  it  are  less,  modes  more  ; 
the  scripture  subordinate,  its  own  wisdom  perilously  superior. 

Take  a  few  illustrations  : 

Say  this  man  is  an  enlightened  moral  agent ;  that  is,  a 
creature  accountable,  and  acting  under  law,  to  his  Creator. 
The  law  says— this  do  ;  temptation  says — that.     The  result 


174  GOD    SINCERE    AND    HOLY. 

is,  he  sins.  The  question  then  occurs,  How  much  did  God 
desire  him  to  keep  the  law  ?  Eimnonsism  answers.  In  itself 
considered,  not  all  things  considered  ;  but,  in  this  latter  re- 
spect, God  desired  him,  with  an  infinite  preference,  to  do  just 
as  he  did  ;  and  just  as  God  worked  in  him  to  do  ;  and  just 
as  God  positively  energized  all  things  to  induce  him  to  do  ; 
and  just  as,  if  he  had  not  done,  it  would  have  been,  an  ever- 
lasting blight,  and  an  immedicable  malady  to  the  creation 
and  the  Creator  ;  and  just  as,  having  done,  the  substantial 
and  eternal  optimism  of  the  universe  is  gloriously  and  indis- 
pensably sustained  by  it. 

How  well  one  knows  when  he  has  competently  learned 
all  this  ;  fit  now  to  preach  any  where — except,  at  least,  in 
the  pulpits  of  some  unsophisticated  and  intelligent  ministers 
of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  ! 

Let  us  now  answer  the  question  by  common  sense,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  Bible,  and  conscience,  and  experience. 

How  much,  in  the  case  supposed,  does  God  desire  that  the 
moral  agent  should  obey,  and  not  transgress  ?  Answer,  In 
a  degree  infinitely  intense,  perfectly  sincere ;  and  both  in  it- 
self considered,  and  all  things  considered,  he  desires  him  to 
do  right  only,  according  to  the  rule  of  action  prescribed  to 
him  ;  so  that  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  that  he  could  more 
desire  it  than  he  does.  His  law  is  himself  It  is  his  own 
radiating  heart.  It  is  the  full-orbed  exponent  of  his  bosom 
and  his  soul  ;  and  to  suppose  he  could  have  a  counter  and  a 
paramount  desire,  at  the  same  moment,  in  favor  of  sin,  is  the 
very  acme  of  all  that  is  absurd,  anti-scriptural,  and  impious 
Be  ye  holy,  for  I  am  holy. 

On  the  antagonist  platform,  it  were  impossible  for  God  to 
be  sincere.  Indeed,  he  is  the  most — but  I  forbear.  Ecce 
signuni. 

There  is,  indeed,  one  mode  of  pseudo-orthodoxy  that  comes 
near  to  a  parallelism,  in  the  matter  of  dishonor  to  the  glorious 
sincerity  of  God,  as  the  object  of  our  adoring  confidence  in 


FALSE  OFFER  OF  SALVATION.  175 

the  gospel.  I  refer  to  that  astute  and  persisting  type  of  theol- 
ogy that  oilbi'S  salvation,  in  some  indefinable  anil  ambiguous 
sense,  to  men,  when  it  is  all  folly  and  equivocation,  because 
there  is  none  for  them  ;  that  provides  exclusively  for  a  part, 
and  then  afl'ects  to  offer  salvation  in  all  the  world,  and  to 
every  creature  !  There  is  some  erudite  sense,  we  are  told,  in 
which  this  is  all  consistent,  all  rational,  all  wise,  all  honorable 
to  God.  But  how  mnch  metaphysics,  karning,  "  yvuiaii;  et 
aocbia,"  it  takes  to  illustrate  and  prove  the  sincerity  of  God, 
in  the  dilemma  so  made  for  him  by  his  own  self-arroga- 
ting disciples  and  official  luminaries,  who  can  measure  ? 
who  knows  ?  who  can  guess  ?  One  of  them,  now,  I  trust,  in 
Heaven,  who  was  nurtured  in  this  school  of  the  Vatican  of 
America,  once  said  to  me,  "I  care  nothing  for  philosophy, 
I  only  preach  the  gospel.  Yet  this  is  my  principle — I  know 
not  for  whom  the  provision  is  made,  or  who  the  elect  are; 
therefore  I  ofler  it  to  all."  I  replied.  When  I  lately  heard 
your  truly  eloquent,  but  very  exceptionable  sermon,  from  John 
5  :  40,  you  told  the  people  that  "  God  oflers  them  salvation, 
that  the  ofler  is  his  own."  Now,  if  it  is  God's  ofler,  what 
has  your  ignorance  to  do  with  it  ?  And  if  it  is  only  your  of- 
fer, and  that  indebted  for  its  being  alone  to  your  ignorance, 
why  not  tell  the  people  so,  that  they  may  safely  despise  both 
the  preaching  and  the  preacher  I  He  replied,  "  True,  to  a 
wonder  !  I  declare  to  you  I  never  thought  of  that  before. 
It  is  absurd,  sure  enough."  I  vi'ould  not  tell  the  name,  though 
he  was  more  honest,  and  sincere,  and  generous  than  were  some 
of  his  teachers — and  cordially  I  love  his  memory  ! 

Before  I  give  the  illustration,  let  me  remark,  that,  in  the 
gospel,  God  is  perpetually  offering  salvation  to  ever//  creat- 
ure. I  affirm  in  it,  what  I  cordially  believe,  his  veritable, 
and  perfect,  and  glorious  sincerity.  In  this  relation, the  mat- 
ter is  important  beyond  all  created  thought.  Men  perish, 
by  neglecting,  or  rejecting,  or  discrediting  his  offer,  and 
their  guilt  is  infinitely  enhanced  as  the  consequence.    If  they 


17G  VIEW    OF    COMMON    SENSE. 

had  reason  to  doubt  his  sincerity,  how  would  it  prevent  their 
own,  howmalte  confidence  impossible  I  He  invites,  he  urges, 
he  forbears,  he  remonstrates,  he  weeps  over  them,  he  com- 
mands, he  threatens,  he  waits,  he  teaches,  he  pursues,  he  re- 
peats, he  lightens,  he  thunders,  and  at  last  he  destroys  them  ! 
Was  he  sincere  ?  I  answer,  on  the  system  of  Emmons,  he 
was  infinitely  insincere,  and  nothing  better. 

Now  for  the  illustration,  and  the  appeal  to  common  sense. 
A  friend  from  abroad  visits  you.  After  inquiries,  you  ascer- 
tain his  condition,  and  invite  him  to  be  your  guest,  and  malte 
your  house  his  home  during  his  stay.  You  are  sincere.  You 
desire  him  to  accept  the  invitation,  and  he  will  do  it,  unless 
self  prevented.  Now,  suppose  the  fact  that  you  would  like 
him  to  stay  with  you,  in  itself  considered,  but  not  all  things 
considered  ;  that  your  reasons  for  the  latter  you  keep  a  se- 
cret, and  urge  those  only  that  show  the  former  ;  urging  him, 
on  that  ground,  to  remain  :  what  would  you  think  of  your 
own  sincerity  ?  What  would  the  whole  world  think  of  it, 
when  known  ?  In  a  reversal  of  circumstances,  would  you 
accept  such  an  invitation  yourself?  that  is,  if  you  knew  or 
only  suspected  it  ?  If  this  be  sincerity  and  truth,  what  are 
hypocrisy  and  falsehood  ?  And  is  this  the  illustration  of  the 
sincerity  of  God  in  the  gospel  ?  Hell  might  tremble  anew 
to  entertain  the  thought !  In  view  of  the  facts  of  the  case, 
conmwn  sense  pronounces  that  no  Jesuitism  in  the  universe 
could  be  conceivably  worse,  as  a  system  of  sublime  mendac- 
ity and  most  captivating  religious  Machiavelism.  Shall  we 
theologically  endorse  or  adopt  the  great  maxim  of  the  Bishop 
of  Autun,  that  "  the  use  of  words  is  to  conceal  our  thoughts  ?" 
to  say  nothing  of  a  late  distinguished  piece  of  originality  on' 
the  nature  and  use  of  language,  by  one  of  the  learned  pres- 
byters of  New  England. 

Suppose,  now,  you  are  sincere  in  your  invitation,  and  you 
iipprehend  that  it  is  his  great  interest  to  accept  it ;  that  you 
can  make  him  do  it,  by  some   means  which  it  is  in  your 


SINCERITY HYPOCRISY.  177 

power,  but  not  in  your  wisdom,  to  apply  ;  that  you  would 
like  to  apply  those  means,  if  you  consistently  could,  but  know 
that  greater  evil  would  result  from  such  application,  in  other 
relations,  than  good  in  this  ;  and  that  you  could  not,  there- 
fore, apply  them,  even  if  the  foreknown  result  were  certainly 
the  refusal  and  damage  of  your  friend.  In  this  case  you  do 
not  apply  them  ;  your  friend  suffers  as  the  consequence,  not 
as  the  effect,  and  you  are  sincere.  You  have  a  resource — he 
none.  In  itself  considered,  you  would  have  apphed  those 
means,  because  you  were  sincere  ;  but  all  things  considered, 
you  applied  them  not,  because  you  were  good ;  because  you 
were  wise  ;  because  you  could  not  prefer  the  less  to  the  great- 
er, or  act  with  the  weaker  against  the  stronger  motive. 

This  shows  where  and  when  the  distinction  legitimately 
applies — when  one  agent  looks  at  two  alternatives,  to  decide 
about  his  own  agency  toward  one  or  the  other  of  them  ;  say- 
ing, shall  I  do  this  or  that  ?  In  itself  considered,  I  would 
gladly  do  this ;  all  things  considered,  I  wisely  prefer  to  do 
that.  I  would  not  have  my  limb  amputated,  in  itself  con- 
sidered ;  but,  all  things  considered,  I  will,  I  prefer,  I  determ- 
ine it. 

Not  so  when  two  agencies  are  distinctly  related  and  in- 
volved. Come  and  stay  with  me,  my  friend.  I  desire  you 
to  comply,  you  can  not  imagine  how  much — almost  as  much, 
as,  all  things  considered,  I  desire  you  not  to  accept  the  in- 
vitation. If  you  come  not,  I  shall  weep  over  you,  I  desire  it 
so  much ;  but  if  you  come,  I  shall  weep  more,  since  I  have 
more  and  greater  reasons  for  desiring  you,  at  aU  events,  not 
to  come  or  to  think  of  such  a  thing. 

The  grand  and  stupid  objection  we  are  now  prepared  to 
answer  in  the  highest  relation — If  God  desires  the  sinner  so 
much  to  accept  salvation,  why  does  he  not  make  him  do  it, 
or  take  order  effectually  to  secure  that  result  ?  I  reply,  he 
would  do  it,  in  every  instance,  and  with  all  his  heart,  be- 
cause he  is  so  perfectly  sincere  ;  but  often  he  sees  that  he 

H  2 


178  SUPREMACV    OF    LAW. 

can  not  wisely  do  it,  that,  having  done  much,  he  can  properly 
do  no  more,  and  that  he  must  utter  over  them  the  awful 
dirge  oi' reprobates'  souls,  How  s/uiH  I  give  thee  v/p,  Ejfhra- 
im,  Iww  sluxll  I  deliver  thee,  Israel  ?  Hoio  sfuill  I  make 
thee  as  Ad/nah,  Iwio  shall  I  set  thee  as  Zeboim  ?  Mine 
heart  is  tur?ied  ivithin  me,  my  rejjentings  are  kindled  to- 
gether. 

If  he  can  not  save  an  individual  person,  in  consistency  with 
his  established  and  excellent  system,  or  mediatorial  moral 
government,  as  a  great  whole,  then  plainly  he  can  save  that 
person  not  at  all,  and  he  perishes  in  his  sins ;  and  the  rea- 
son is  both  obvious  g,nd  conclusive,  in  the  estimate  of  a  sound 
and  rectified  intelligence.  In  this  system,  too,  so  vast  and 
so  perfect  in  itself,  so  good  for  us  and  so  glorious  to  God,  it 
is  plainly  and  pre-eminently  the  fault  of  the  sinner,  and  his 
alone,  if  he  is  lost.  If  our  civil  government,  in  this  country, 
were,  for  its  proper  ends,  absolutely  perfect ;  and  if  in  it,  ac- 
cording to  law,  a  citizen  were  guilty,  and  justly  condemned 
to  die,  so  that  the  law  must  be  executed,  and  the  culprit  sac- 
rificed to  the  justice  of  the  land,  or  the  executive  clemency 
must  interpose,  and  rescue  him,  in  a  way  contrary  to  the 
system  of  the  government,  then,  plainly,  the  law  and  all  it 
represents  is  sacrificed,  if  the  malefactor  is  saved  at  its  ex- 
pense. But  the  less  must  be  sacrificed  to  the  greater,  rather 
than  the  reverse  ;  in  itself  considered,  benevolence  would  ac- 
complish his  rescue  ;  but,  all  things  considered,  benevolence 
requires  his  punishment — requires  that  the  law  be  executed, 
and  justice  maintained  at  his  expense,  who  made  the  dilem- 
ma and  deserves  the  doom. 

There  is  an  excellent  distinction  resulting  from  the  forego- 
ing views,  without  which  Christianity  and  Fatalism  could 
not  be  easily  or  well  discriminated.  It  is  necessary  to  the 
reality,  as  well  as  to  the  perfection  of  moral  government, 
and  therefore  it  ought  to  be  well  under.stood  by  all  preachers. 
It  may  be  thus  stated  :  The  moral  or  judicial  preference 


rREI'ERENCE    AND    RESOURCE    OF    GOD.  179 

OF  God,  in  connection  with  his  providential  resource. 
That  pielerence,  always  peilcclly  and  intensely  sincere,  de- 
sires that  the  subject  should  act  right  under  the  law,  and  ac- 
cept grace,  and  so  be  saved,  under  the  gospel ;  but,  at  the 
same  time,  it"  he  will  not,  in  his  privileged  and  appropriate 
circumstances,  then  God  says  to  him,  I  have  my  resource 
with  glory,  you  have  none  at  all  in  your  guilt  and  shame  ;  I 
will  cause  your  very  larath  to  praise  me,  and  I  will  restraiti 
the  remainder ;  your  punishment  shall  show  my  justice  and 
honor  my  law  ;  you  shall  glorify  me  passively,  as  you  refused 
to  do  it  actively  ;  I  will  coerce  your  ways,  and  use  your  sin 
to  become  its  own  punishment  and  your  own  tormentor  ;  I 
will  overrule  and  counterwork  all  your  transgressions,  and 
economize  them,  contrary  to  their  own  nature,  and  in  spite 
of  their  native  tendency,  to  efTectuate  good ;  I  will  be  avail- 
ed of  your  sins,  as  you  can  never  be  ;  if  you  murder  my  Son 
to  kill  his  cause,  I  will  make  his  death  the  life  of  his  cause  ; 
"  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  shall  become  the  seed  of  the 
Church  ;"  and  while  you  shall  be  made  useful  in  your  de- 
struction, your  presence  will  never  be  desiderated  in  heaven. 
Others  shall  be  there,  the  majority  at  last,  and  the  wedding 
shall  he  furnished  ivilh  guests.  All  this  I  understood,  an- 
ticipated, and  rightly  compacted,  from  all  eternity ;  and  great 
shall  be  my  glory,  as  my  own  veritable  ways  in  this  shall  be 
displayed,  and  understood,  and  enjoyed,  by  all  the  holy  uni- 
verse, and  to  all  eternity,  with  adoration,  and  thanksgiving, 
and  praise. 

This  forever  precludes  the  least  motive  to  sin,  and  destroys 
from  the  sinner  every  figment  of  excuse.  The  sermons  of 
Emmons,  vol.  vi.  on  Ezek.  18  :  32,  and  Heb.  11  :  26,  are 
real  curiosities,  as  connected  with  his  system.  We  would 
not  criminate  his  motives,  or  say  any  thing  unkind,  when,  in 
view  of  those  sermons,  rigidly  compared  with  his  system — 
with  what  he  fully  maintains  in  other  sermons  —  we  pro- 
nounce them  speciously  sophistical  and  contradictory  in  their 


180  SPURIOUS    SINCERITY. 

total  structure  and  scope.  The  title  of  the  former,  The 
Death  of  Sinners  not  pleasing  to  God,  evinces  its  inten- 
tional drift ;  and  its  whole  argument  in  epitome  may  be  stated 
inthese  extracted  words  :  "  The  salvation  of  every  sinner  is 
desirable  in  its  own  nature  ;  and  therefore  God  sincerely  de- 
sires that  every  sinner  should  be  saved."  If  he  meant  this 
lor  logic,  what  child  can  not  see  that  it  is  inconsequent  and 
false  ?  The  illative,  therefore,  imports  a  connection  between 
premise  and  conclusion  that  has  no  existence,  and  especially 
in  light  of  his  system.  He  speaks  of  them  that  perish  ;  God 
desiies  each  of  them,  in  itself  considered  only,  or  "  in  its  own 
nature,"  to  repent,  believe,  and  be  saved.  Yet,  all  things 
considered,  that  is,  in  the  higher,  and  the  vaster,  and  the  su- 
preme aspect  of  the  matter,  he  desires  them  exactly  as  they 
do,  to  sin  and  perish  ;  works  it  all  in  thein,  efficiently,  pro- 
ductively, creatively,  to  continue  their  rebellion,  grow  worse 
and  worse,  and  so  meet  perdition  at  last ;  and,  in  the  mean 
time,  he  weeps  over  them,  and  all  that,  because  he  desires 
the  salvation  of  each  of  them  "  in  its  own  nature"  only  ;  and 
therefore  he  is  sincere  in  desiring,  remonstrating,  protesting, 
and  grieving  over  them,  for  their  salvation  !  Poor  Mendez, 
you  are  starving,  and  I  pity  you — in  itself  considered ;  not 
otherwise.     Good-by. 

Words  are  poor  to  express  a  proper  detestation  for  such  a 
hollow-hearted  and  hypocritical  system  I  It  is  organized  hy- 
pocrisy by  wholesale,  caricaturing  and  misrepresenting  God 
in  his  ways  of  truth  and  mercy  toward  them  that  perish. 
It  is  neither  scripture,  nor  sense,  nor  conscience,  nor  experi- 
ence, nor  Calvinism  ;  and  in  a  sermon,  written  on  purpose  to 
do  and  show  his  best  to  evince  the  sincerity  of  God  in  his 
overtures  and  urgencies  toward  the  non-elect  or  them  that 
perish,  according  to  his  system,  he  has  made  a  specious  and 
a  perfect  failure.  It  awfully  misrepresents  the  God  of  sin- 
cerity, from  beginning  to  end  of  his  sermon  I 

That  God  can  make  a  moral  agent  is  a  grand  and  infalli- 


SI'KCIiMKNfi    OF    EMMON3ISM.  181 

bli;  fact.  That  he  can  govern  him,  when  made,  without  de- 
nuding him  of  his  proper  attributes,  is  another  fact.  The.se 
facts  are  not  the  less  real,  because  neither  metaphysics  nor 
the  Bible  shows  us  the  mode  of  them.  The  mode  is  of  no 
relative  importance  or  value  to  us.  We  know  the  fact.s,  and 
other  facts  related  and  subordinate  ;  but  the  modes  involved 
we  do  not  know,  nor  is  it  at  all  important  that  we  should 
know  them.  God  alone  understands  all  modes,  all  essences, 
all  things,  real  or  ideal,  actual  or  possible,  in  time  and  in 
eternity  ;  and  what  we  may  know  hereafter,  if  we  obey  the 
gospel  and  get  to  heaven,  is  another  matter. 

Some  of  us,  however,  believe  that  the  mode  of  the  meta- 
physics of  Emmons  destroys  the  facts  of  the  revelation  of 
God.  Is  this  a  moral  agent — a  man,  all  whose  volitions, 
good  and  bad,  God  creatively  and  equally  produces,  causes, 
and  works  in  him  to  will  and  to  do  ?*  Then,  a  better 
moral  agent  is  a  good  watch  !  this  can  go  alone  for  a  time  ; 
but  such  a  moral  agent  can  act  only  as  actuated,  and  this  by 
physical,  aboriginal  necessity.  It  is  the  worst  kind  of  mate- 
rialism I  Emmons  says  that  God  does  all  the  sins  of  men  I 
and  so  he  does,  if  his  theory  is  true  I  Take  a  few  tremen- 
dous specimens.  "  But  since  all  their  sinful  conduct  may  be 
ascribed  to  God  [the  devil  being  very  much  at  leisure,]  who 
ordained  it  for  his  own  glory  [great '  glory'  that  !]  and  whose 
agency  was  concerned  in  it,  men  have  no  reason  to  be  sorry 
that  any  evil  action  or  event  took  place."  HF^  Read  and 
compare  here  the  fifty-first  Psalm,  and  Luke,  22  :  62,  serious- 
ly. "  If  we  ought  to  be  sorry,  all  things  considered,  that  any 
event  has  taken  place,  then  it  is  utterly  impossible  that  either 
God  or  his  holy  creatures  can  be  completely  blessed."  "  The 
actions  of  men  may  be  properly  ascribed  both  to  God  and  to 
themselves."     "  He  is  said  [which,  in  his  sense  of  it,  we 

*  Dr.  Emmons,  one  of  the  worst  of  interpreters,  makes  this  mean 
the  way  of  God  with  good  and  bad  men  equally  and  universally,  ft 
is  plain  assumption  and  perversion. 


182  HIS    THEORY    ATTESTED    AS    HIS. 

deny]  to  work  in  all  men,  both  to  will  and  to  do,  of  his  good 
pleasure  ;"  the  text  refers  alone  to  saints  !  "  Mind  can  not 
act,  any  more  than  matter  can  move,  without  a  divine  agen- 
cy," that  is,  without  the  producing  agency  of  God  in  all  its 
volitions,  efficiently  creating  each  of  them.  "  If  men  do  us 
evil,  God  is  the  primary  cause  of  the  evil."  "  If  they  need 
any  kind  or  degree  of  divine  agency  in  doing  good,  [ITF^] 
they  need  precisely  the  same  kind  and  degree  of  divine 
agency  in  doing  evil.  This  is  the  dictate  of  reason,  and 
the  scripture  says  the  same.  It  is  God  who  worketh  in 
men  both  to  will  and  to  do  in  all  cases  without  exception." 
This  means  Judas  as  well  as  John,  and  the  devil  as  well 
as  Christ.  "And  if  he  produces  their  bad  as  well  as  good 
volitions,  then  his  ageiicy  was  concerned  in  precisely  the 
same  manner  in  their  wrong  as  in  their  right  actions.  It 
is  upon  this  ground,  and  only  upon  this  ground,  [«=:^]  that 
all  the  actions  of  men,  whether  good  or  evil,  may  properly  be 
ascribed  to  God."  In  reference  to  the  first  sin  of  Adam,  he 
says,  "  It  was  produced  by  a  divine  operation."  The  motives 
of  Satan,  a  supernumerary  there  with  Adam,  "  by  a  divine 
energy,  took  hold  of  his  heart  and  led  him  into  sin."  The 
sins  of  new-born  infants,  too,  are  all  solved  as  well,  on  this 
new  and  sparkling  theory.  "  God  now  brings  men  into  the 
world  in  a  state  of  moral  depravity.  But  how  ?  The  an- 
swer is  easy.  When  God  forms  the  souls  of  infants,  he  forms 
them  with  moral  powers,  and  makes  them  men  in  minia- 
ture ;  he  works  in  them  as  he  does  in  other  men,  both  to 
will  and  to  do  of  his  good  pleasure  ;  or  produces  those  moral 
exercises  in  their  hearts  in  which  moral  depravity  proper- 
ly and  essentially  consists.  Moral  depravity  can  take  place 
no  where  but  in  moral  agents,  and  moral  agents  can  never 
act  [[C^]  but  only*  as  they  are  acted  upon  by  a  divine  op- 
eration. It  is  just  as  easy,  therefore,  to  account  for  moral  de- 
pravity in  infancy  as  in  any  other  period  of  life."  What  a 
*  This  shows  exactly  what  a  moral  agent  is  in  his  view.     Shame ! 


GOD  THE  AUTHOR  OF  SIN THEREFORE!      183 

doctor  of  divinity  I  What  a  motaphysiciau  I  AYhat  au  in- 
terpreter of  the  oracles  of  God  !  What  a  pity  that  the  whole 
assembly  of  divines  at  Westminster  could  not  have  gone  to 
school  to  such  a  glorious  theologian  before  thoy  ventured  to 
tell  us  that  human  sins  come  to  pass,  indeed,  in  connection 
with  eternal  providence  ;  "  yet  so  as  the  sinfulness  thereof 
proceedeth  only  from  the  creature,  and  not  from  God  ; 
who,  being  most  holy  and  righteous,  neither  is,  nor  can  be, 
the  author  or  the  approver  of  sin."  Yet  this  is  the  divine 
whose  metaphysics,  doctrinal  wisdom,  and  great  piety,  as 
well  as  talents,  are  so  praised  by  other  great  divines — and 
indeed  he  seems  to  need  all  the  praise  he  will  ever  get  I  Let 
any  calm,  intelligent  scholar,  that  is,  disciple  of  Christ,  read 
and  study,  especially  in  the  original,  such  passages  as  the 
following,  in  this  connection  :  James  1  :  13-17,  3  :  10-18, 
Gal.  5  :  22-16,  6  :  7,  8,  15,  16. 

If  God  is  not  perfectly  the  author  of  sin,  on  the  theory 
of  Emmons,  then  w^e  can  not  conceive  of  any  theory  that  just- 
ly involves  such  a  consequence.  If  he  is  not,  then  is  it  ow- 
ing to  the  fact  alone,  hy  him  alleged,  that  God  is  not  its 
similar  or  its  approver.  But  this  is  wholly  another  idea.  Sup- 
pose— I  write  it  with  awe  and  horror — that  God  produces,  to 
answer  his  own  ends,  and  as  Emmons  teaches,  all  the  sin 
that  ever  was,  or  is,  or  ever  will  or  can  possibly  be  in  the 
universe  ;  he  is  then  the  cause  of  it,  both  efficient  and  final; 
and  what  is  this  but  the  author  ?  Now  if  any  man  can  go 
this,  and  not  wince  at  it,  we  may  only  say  that  we  are  pro- 
foundly sorry  for  him,  in  itself  cohsidered  and  all  things  con- 
sidered I  God  keep  us  all  from  so  gross,  and  so  hardening, 
and  so  impious  a  hallucination  against  his  nature,  and  his 
truth,  and  the  influence  of  his  own  Holy  Spirit ;  against  the 
whole  analogy  of  faith  I 

On  the  theory  of  Emmons,  we  must  aver  that  God  is  both 
the  author  and  the  approver  of  sin.  If  he  is  not  then 
thie  similar  too,  we  confess  the  native  danger  of  our  mind  as- 


184  SOME  OTHERS  AGREE  WITH  HIM. 

sociating  it,  as  a  consequence,  not  more  morally  terrible  than 
logically  legitimate.  He  approves  of  sin,  all  things  consid- 
ered ;  approves  it  positively  in  that  relation  of  infinitude  ; 
views  the  universe  hypothetically  as  morally  ruined  without 
it,  and  really  perfectionated  only  with  it ;  hence  he  aborig- 
inally designed  and  desired  sin,  produced  it  creatively,  keeps 
producing  it,  as  infinitely  desirable,  all  things  considered  ; 
and,  as  the  Lord  sJuill  o'ejoice  m  his  works,  so  he  enjoys  it 
exquisitely,  to  all  eternity,  on  that  same  ecumenical  and  eco- 
nomical basis,  he  and  all  the  hosts  of  heaven  with  him  !  Is 
this  our  God  ? 

Leibnitz,  Lord  Bolingbroke  alias  Henry  St.  John,  Hume, 
Pope,  and  others  of  the  infidel  class,  taught  the  same  anti- 
Christian  theosophy.  Bolingbroke,  indeed,  was  the  patron 
deity  of  Pope.  He  invokes  him  for  a  muse  in  his  Essay  on 
Ma7i,  which  teems  with  elegance  and  poison : 

Awake,  my  St.  John,  leave  all  meaner  things 

To  low  ambition  and  the  pride  of  kings. 

Afterward,  mixing  plausibility  with  fallacy,  and  truth  with 
error,  and  eternal  providence  with  Turkish  fatalism,  and  sweet 
versification  with  moral  death,  he  says  much  that  is  hugely 
and  impiously  false  : 

All  nature  is  but  art  unknown  to  thee  ; 

All  chance  direction  which  thou  canst  not  see. 

All  discord  harmony  not  understood, 

All  partial  evil  universal  good. 

In  spite  of  pride,  in  erring  reason's  spite. 

One  truth  is  clear — "Wu-^tever  is,  is  right. 

If  sin  ever  exists,  we  aver,  according  to  the  word  of  God,  that 
a  more  direct  and  impious  lie,  than  that  contained  in  the  last 
four  words  of  the  quotation,  was  scarcely  ever  Avritten  or  con- 
ceived I 

The  proposition  that  avhatever  is,  is  right,  may  be  de- 
nominated an  axiomatic  lie,  or  an  illustriously  lying  axiom. 
Sill  is,  and  sin  is  only  wrong.     Sin  is  right,  according  to  the 


A    MISTAKE    FAVORS    HIS    VIEW.  185 

laws  of  language  and  the  nature  and  relations  of  things,  in 
no  sense  whatever  I  it  is  wrong,  and  only  wrong,  and  wrong 
to  all  eternity.  That  God  permits  its  eventuation,  so  to 
speak,  in  his  system,  because  he  could  not,  all  things  consid- 
ered, consistently  and  wisely  prevent  it,  we  believe  and  know ; 
also,  that  he  overrules  it,  manages  it,  counterworks  it,  pun- 
ishes its  doers,  and  pardons  for  it  his  penitent  people,  to  his 
own  perfect  glory,  is  also  true.  But  in  what  relation  or  de- 
gree is  sin  therefore  right  ?  Its  tendency  and  nature — arc 
they  altered  ?  meliorated  ?  or  less  bad  as  malum  in  se,  et 
malum  prohibitum^  et  malum  in  omnibus,  et  malum  sempi- 
ternum,  totum  et  solum  nialum.' 

It  is  by  such  and  the  like  specious  philosophisms  that  great 
men  "  reconcile  their  sins  with  saving  grace"  and  perish  in 
their  serene  delusions.  What  a  pity  that  great  divines  should 
become  their  helpers  iu  the  science  I  I  knew  one,  now,  I 
trust,  in  heaven,  through  pardoning  grace,  indeed  I  who  on 
a  special  occasion  undertook  paternally  to  comfort  some  young 
converts  with  this  philosophy.  His  thesis  was.  You  ought 
not  to  regret  your  sins,  all  things  considered,  but  only  in  it- 
self considered  ;  uay,  iu  the  former  relation  you  ought  to  be 
grateful,  and  ofier  thanks  to  God  that  you  committed  them 
all  exactly  as  you  did.  Then  he  opened  to  them  the  beau- 
ties of  Rom.  6  :  17  as  his  authority  ;  his  own  qitoad  hoc  stu- 
pidity working  with  a  mistake  or  two  of  our  version,  where 
the  bold,  idiomatic  style  of  the  original  is  very  unhappily 
transferred,  as  it  ought  to  have  been  translated  only ;  getting 
all  its  argument  from  a  mere  mistake  of  the  version,  which 
ought  to  be,  delicately,  thus  :  But  God  be  thanked  that  ye 
are  not,  though  ye  were,  the  servants  of  sin  :  since  from  the 
heart  ye  have  obeyed  that  mould  of  doctrine  into  which  ye 
were  delivered  or  cast  ;  as  we  say,  in  reference  to  metals  in 
a  state  of  liquidity  or  fusion,  as  poured  into  the  mould,  and 
thence  deriving  the  image  and  superscription  of  their  new 
existence. 


186       A  PREACHER  SHOULD  KNOW  BETTER. 

If  it  were  not  doing  evil  tlmt  good  might  come,  I  should 
like,  for  the  good  that  might  come  of  it  in  the  way  of  illus- 
tration, I  should  like  to  see  a  clever  theologian  undertake  the 
task,  bona  fide,  before  a  large  assembly  of  co-worshipers.  I 
would  say,  go  it,  sir,  if  you  dare  I  Tell  God  how  much  you 
thank  him  for  all  the  sins,  especially  the  worst,  you  and  they 
ever  committed  !  Nay,  iicrform  tlic  doing  of  it  with  a  holy 
willingness  to  sin,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing — do  it  devoutly, 
do  it  thoroughly,  do  it  intelligibly  ;  do  it — if  you  dare  !  Tell 
him  how  much  better  is  the  universe  of  being,  for  all  the  dis- 
interested contributions  by  sinning,  made  to  it  in  your  own 
case  and  that  of  others  so  copiously  ;  and  how  willing  you 
are,  hypothetically,  to  go  to  hell,  on  the  same  principle  and 
for  the  same  sublime  ends,  thereby  achieved  and  magnified 
throughout  everlasting  ages,  Amen. 

I  am  no  novice,  and  no  frigid  speculatist,  in  the  exposure 
of  this  theological  deceit  and  malignity.  I  have  seen  it  in 
the  concrete,  operative,  and  in  many  instances  ;  and  I  boldly 
write  it — in  my  judgment  no  man  ought  to  be  sanctioned  by 
the  Church  of  God,  as  his  minister  for  its  edification,  who 
holds  that  refined,  metaphysical,  and  execrable  Jesuitry  of 
theological  wisdom.  Generally,  it  would  be  as  wise,  and  ex- 
pedient, and  as  safe  in  the  lower  relations  of  national  politics, 
and  in  a  state  of  war,  to  send  such  an  ambassador  as  Bene- 
dict Arnold  or  Aaron  Burr  to  represent  us  diplomatically  at 
the  court  of  the  hostile  nation,  the  actual  belligerent,  and  to 
manage  our  negotiations  there  in  reference  to  a  treaty  of  per- 
petual peace  and  amity.  It  is  quite  time  that  all  personal 
regards  and  memories  toward  the  living  and  the  dead  were 
solemnly  postponed  to  the  grand  previous  question,  xchat 
is  the  truth  of  God,  and  what  do  its  interests  require  of  us 
a7id  our  children  ? 

In  the  free  and  popular  language  of  the  Bible,  God  is  often 
said  to  do  a  thing,  because  it  occurs  in  his  multiform  and  holy 
providence,  and  not  because  literally  he  did  it.     Solomon 


CHRIST    OUR    GLORIOUS    HEAD    FOREVER.  187 

built  him  an  house,  it  is  said  ;  yet,  literally,  he  did  no  such 
thing,  neither  he  nor  any  other  man.  It  was  the  johit  pro- 
duction of  many  thousands  of  minds,  and  hearts,  and  hands. 
God's  providence  is  manifold  and  wonderful,  2ipholdi7ig  all 
things  by  the  word  of  his  foxver.  He  is  wonderful  in  coun- 
sel and  excellent  in  ^vorking.  To  hud  him  out  to  perfec- 
tion is  the  result  of  no  man's  metaphysics.  We  are  to  rec- 
ognize and  worship  HIM  by  faith  ;  not  through  philosophy 
and  vain  deceit,  after  the  tradition  of  men,  after  the  rudi- 
ments of  the  ivorld,  and  not  after  Christ :  for  in  him  dwell- 
eth  all  the  ficllness  of  the  Godhead  bodily  ;  and  ye  are  com- 
plete IN  HIM,  u'ho  is  the  Head  of  all  princijMlity  and  pow- 
er. It  is  a  pity  that  some  disciples  have  no  just  conception 
of  how  COMPLETE  IN  HIM  wc  are  ;  and  hence  they  resort  to 
their  own  elaborate  ingenuity  to  frame  a  metaphysical  key 
that  is  to  open  all  the  doors,  by  fitting  all  the  locks,  of  reve- 
lation ;  and  they  wonder  that  others  value  it  not  as  they  do  I 
But  the  lofty  hierarchies  that  surround  his  throne,  principal- 
ities and  powers  put  in  subjection  under  him,  own  him  their 
HEAD  AND  Captain  ;  and  till  they  desert  him  for  a  sub- 
limer  completeness  elsewhere,  may  we  be  found  ever  hold- 
ing THE  HEAD,  in  whom  alone  we  can  be  complete,  or 
have  good  hope  through  grace. 

God  is  said  to  harden  men,  when  they  harden  themselves, 
under  his  means  and  methods  of  mercy  or  of  judgment  with 
them,  by  voluntarily  perverting  those  means.  Thus  the  gos- 
pel is  a  savor  of  death  unto  death  to  thousands  ;  not  because 
this  is  at  all  its  proper  tendency  and  fruit ;  nor  because  God 
desires  men  to  abuse  it ;  nor  because  it  has  no  positive  char- 
acter and  tendency  of  its  own  ;  but  because,  as  Watts  cor- 
rectly says,  "  unbelief  perverts  the  same,  to  guilt,  despair,  and 
death."  To  this  we  may  add,  that  God  at  length  gives  them 
up,  as  he  says.  Then  they  harden  themselves  fast,  and  he, 
in  eft'ect,  hardens  them,  judicially,  as  seems  good  in  his  sight. 
They  arc  thus  the  architects  of  their  own  undone  eternity. 


188  REASONS  FOR  SELF-LOVE. 

If  it  be  not  wrong,  but  right,  for  a  man  to  love  himself,  the 
question  may  properly  occur,  on  what  grounds  and  lor  what 
reasons  exists  the  obligation  ?  We  view  it  here  as  a  prac- 
tical duty,  and  not  merely  and  originally  as  an  instinct  ine- 
radicable of  our  being. 

The  true  answer  may  evolve  a  grandly  important  principle, 
that  is  virtually  excluded  in  the  system  of  Emmons,  and  oft- 
en foregone  in  the  practice  of  its  disciples.  We  answer,  one 
ought  properly  and  practically  to  love  himself: 

(1)  Because  the  law  of  God  commands  it;  and  Emmons 
says  at  last,  I  am  wrong  in  maintaining  the  contrary  for  sixty 
years. 

(2)  Because  all  other  duties  commanded  resemble,  and  as- 
sist, and  imply  it,  and  could  not  and  do  not  exist  without  it. 

(3)  Because,  without  it,  one  has  lost  his  criterion  of  duty  to 
his  neighbor. 

(4)  Because,  when  rightly  performed,  it  benefits  one's  self 
and  others,  and  injures  no  being,  but  coincides  with  universal 
happiness. 

(5)  Because  it  would  be  preposterous  to  put  love  to  others 
before  love  to  one's  self,  and  absurd  to  attempt  the  former  in 
derogation,  or  violation,  or  exclusion  of  the  latter  ;  to  incur  in 
some  cases  a  temporary  inconvenience  or  privation  for  the  sake 
of  others,  is  to  act  only  with  large  and  enlightened,  we  say  not 
supreme,  regard  to  one's  own  best  happiness. 

(6)  Because  of  one's  own  personal  worth  and  importance 
as  a  creature  of  God,  in  connection  with  the  necessary  and 
the  universal  instincts  of  one's  being  and  those  of  our  species, 
holy  or  unholy,  perversely  or  genuinely  loving  happiness. 

(7)  Because  of  one's  constituted  or  incidental  moral  rela- 
tions to  himself ;  1  alone  of  beings  sustain  those  relations  to 
myself,  and  I  sustain  the  same  to  no  other  being — only  sim- 
ilar or  equal  ones. 

This  last  or  seventh  is  the  grand  and  momentous  principle 
that  seems  excluded,  or  pretermitted,  or  condemned  in  Em- 


DUTIES    RESULT    FROM    RELATIONS.  189 

monsism.  To  compare  and  weigh  the  objects  of  duty  as  to 
their  intrinsic  importance,  or  absolute  and  comparative  value 
a  work  to  which  no  man  on  earth  is  at  all  equal  or  com- 
petent, seems  to  be  the  wisdom  of  that  system.  It  may  hence 
be  philosophico-metaphysical  in  a  sort,  hut  it  is  not  practical, 
it  is  not  scriptural,  it  is  not  worthy  of  confidence.  It  ex- 
cludes relations  as  connected  with  duties. 

On  the  other  hand,  according  to  the  gospel,  our  duties 
RESULT  FROM  OUR  RELATIONS.  This  is  a  proposition  of  uni- 
versal truth,  of  prime  and  cardinal  gravity.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  duty  without  the  antecedent  relation,  from 
which  it  flows.  Hence  wise  men  study  their  moral  relations, 
all  of  them  mutually,  toward  others  from  themselves,  and  to- 
ward themselves  from  others.  Tltoii  shall  love — an  abso- 
lute command  I — love  whom  ?  an  abstraction — a  possibility 
— a  hypothesis — an  idea  ?  or  what  ?  Answer — the  Lord, 
THY  God  ;  the  great  One,  who  sustains  to  thee  the  relations  of 
maker,  owner,  ruler,  benefactor,  preserver,  judge,  and  sover- 
eign disposer.  And  thou  shall  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself. 
But  suppose  his  intrinsic  or  comparative  importance  be  very 
inferior  !  Answer — That  is  nothing,  or  mainly  nothing.  The 
relation  exists — he  is  thy  neighbor.  His  proximity  to  thee 
makes  him  the  proper  object  of  thy  beneficence.  If  he  lived 
in  some  other  world,  and  that  unknown,  or  entirely  out  of 
thy  reach,  the  relation  could  not  exist,  nor  the  duty  either. 
If  in  no  sense  thy  ?ieighbor,  he  is  to  thee  morally  nothing  ; 
whatever  he  may  be  metaphysically — as  a  quiddity,  an  entity, 
a  possibilit)',  a  phantasy,  a  non-entity,  an  ambiguity,  or  an 
absurdity.  The  relation  between  Paul  and  Nero  made  it 
the  duty  of  the  former  to  obey  the  latter,  irrespective  of  his 
intrinsic  character  or  importance.  The  relations  of  a  man 
to  his  own  family,  especially  to  his  wife,  and  parents,  and 
children,  make  his  duties  to  them  inalienable  ;  even  if  some 
others,  and  not  our  own  parents,  or  wives,  or  children,  are 
superior  in  all  excellence.     The  moral  bands  that  contain 


190  A    SAGE    OBJECTION     ANSWERED. 

and  consolidate  society  depend  on  no  impulses  or  preferences 
—on  no  capricious  or  variable  causes.  They  are  worthy  of 
the  Great  Architect  and  Economist  Avho  made  them. 

So,  also,  the  moral  relations  of  each  to  himself,  as  prior, 
obey  not  an  order  of  importance,  but  of  j)ractical  propriety. 
It  may  be  my  duty  to  try  to  induce  my  neighbor  to  repent 
and  believe  the  gospel;  but  it  is  my  prior  duty  to  perform 
the  same  myself  And  common  sense  knows  it  !  Nor  have 
I  any  such  relation  to  the  piety  and  the  salvation  of  another, 
as  I  have  to  my  own  piety  and  salvation. 

Objection — But  if  I  could  see  excellence,  to  which  I  have 
and  sustain  no  real  or  possible  relation,  should  I  not  be  bound 
to  love  it  ?     And  if  I  should,  how  or  why  ? 

Answer — If  you  should  level  a  rifle  at  an  abstraction,  and 
shoot  it  flying  ;  and  if  you  should  see  a  system  of  metaphys- 
ics hanging  by  a  cobweb  to  the  wing  of  a  gossamer,  and  ca- 
reering through  the  atmosphere  before  the  spirit  of  the  storm  ; 
and  if  you  should  ever  see  excellence  without  seeing  the  per- 
son that  is  excellent,  or  whiteness  without  the  thing  that  is 
white,  or  the  quality  real  and  tangible  without  the  subject,  or 
a  mass  of  matter  that  had  no  gravitation,  or  a  parliament  of 
inteUigences  who  know  not  or  disbelieve  that  two  and  two 
are  four  ;  or  if  you  should  ever  see  folly  that  is  not  the  prop- 
erty of  some  fool,  or  mysterious  knockings  with  which  the 

devil  is  not  practicing  his  own  mysterious  mockings stay, 

when  you  shall  see  these,  and  some  other  ontologies  of  meta- 
physical fanfaronade,  and  will  report  them,  "may  I  be  there  to 
see  ;"  because  dreams  and  visions  used  to  be  so  edifying  I 
The  question  is  too  much  compounded  of  hypothesis,  and  im- 
possibility, and  absurdity,  and  fustian,  to  deserve  any  more 
sober  or  formal  answer.  It  is  properly  a  logical  felo  de  se, 
answering  suicidally  itself.  I  say,  then,  to  the  objector  at 
last,  as  soon  as  you  see  that  same  excellence,  I  advise, 

(1)  That  you  remember  some  of  the  grave  questions  that 
illumined  the  intellections  of  the  dark  ages,  as  this  :  If  an 


OtJR    DUTY    TO    BE    SAVED.  191 

actually  existing  insect  is  not  quite  as  important  as  a  possi- 
ble angel  ?  If"  a  seraph  can  not  pass  from  one  star  to  anoth- 
er without  at  all  passing  through  or  near  the  intermediate 
space  ?  Or,  whether  the  peterity  of  Peter,  or  the  johnity  of 
John,  or  the  shearjashubity  of  Shearjashub,  be  not  a  reality 
quite  as  capable  of  identification,  if  not  as  magnificent  in  the 
quintessence  of  its  possible  attributes,  as  the  conception  of 
the  paulity  of  Paul  ?     And — 

(2)  1  advise  that,  as  soon  as  the  phenomenon  appears,  you 
should  point  your  rifle  at  it,  and — fire  I 

If  in  all  this  I  have  gone  far  to  crush  a  foolery,  I  plead — 
not  too  far  at  all,  if  the  foolery  is  only  crushed.  Sometimes 
the  proper  way,  and  the  only  proper  way,  of  answering  a 
question,  is  just  to  show,  by  analysis  or  illustration,  that  the 
question  is  silly  or  contemptible. 

What  now  is  that  excellence  or  squalidity  that  has  no 
subject,  no  object,  no  relation,  no  entity,  and  no  possibility 
either  ? 

My  own  solvation,  under  God,  depends  on  myself,  as  it 
can  depend  on  no  other  creature,  and  as  no  other  creature 
can  depend  on  it.  I  am  obligated  to  obey  the  gospel,  and  be 
saved  too,  as  I  am  not  obligated,  in  reference  to  any  other, 
that  he  should  do  and  be  the  same.  I  can  control  my  own 
moral  actions,  as  no  other  creature  can  control  them,  and  as 
I  can  control  the  actions  of  no  other  creature.  The  gospel 
requires  each  of  us,  in  that  new  and  living  xvay  ivhich 
Christ  has  consecrated  for  us  through  the  vail,  that  is  to 
say,  his  flesh,  to  go  to  heaven  ;  to  know  it ;  to  have  the  earn- 
est of  it  in  our  hearts  ;  to  walk  in  the  light  and  the  peace 
of  its  hope  ;  and  thus  to  allure  others  in  the  same  supremely 
right  way,  intending  to  help  their  salvation,  and  consciously 
securing  our  own,  by  cordial  confidence  or  faith  in  what- 
ever GOD  SAY'S  IN  HIS  HOLY  WORD. 

If  all  men  would  seek  their  true  happiness  where  only  it 
can  be  found,  Jer.  2  :  12,  13,  in  God,  how  happy  and  how 


192  FAITH    SAVES    US,  NOT    OUR    OWX    WISDOM. 

holy  Avould  Ihey  all  become  ;  possessing  in  Christ  the  first- 
fruits  of"  heaven,  and  iaheritiug  everlasting  life.  The  con- 
sistency betvi^een  individual  and  social  happiness  veould  be 
every  where  acknovirledged  and  demonstrated.  Simplicity  of 
faith  and  practice  would  induce  sublimity  of  usefulness  and 
enjoyment.  The  system  of  God  would  be  illustrated  in  the 
piety  of  men,  and  they  would  correspond  with  him  intelli- 
gently and  devoutly  ;  tcho  will  have  all  men  to  he  saved,  even 
to  come  to  the  acknoidedgiyient  of  the  truth  :  as  I  would  ren- 
der the  passage,  i.  Tim.  2  :  1. 

We  may  here  relate  an  illustrative  anecdote.  It  is  cer- 
tainly in  point,  as  the  reader  will  own.  That  it  is  credible 
and  authentic,  I  am  fully  competent  to  affirm.  I  well  knew 
the  parties,  all  of  them  ;  and  trust  they  are  now  in  a  world 
where  wisdom  is  perfect,  and  where  grace  in  glory,  and  glory 
in  grace,  forever  accomplish  them,  as  the  worshipers  of  God 
and  the  ransomed  of  the  Lamb.  I  also  knew  the  incidents 
and  the  facts  ;  I  witnessed  them,  and  well  remember  the  oc- 
casion on  which  they  occurred.  The  style  and  language  of 
the  colloquy  is  mainly,  however,  my  own — not  all  of  it ! 

But  first  there  is  a  principle  involved,  which  may  here  be 
stated  and  justified.  It  is  this — blessed  be  God  I  a  man  may 
be  saved  in  spite  of  his  philosophy.  Many  a  good  Christian 
is  a  bad  philosopher  ;  and  though  his  errors  in  opinion  are  no 
helps,  but  only  hinderances  to  his  faith,  and,  with  a  better 
philosophy,  he  would  be  a  happier,  and  a  stronger,  and  a  bet- 
ter Christian  ;  yet  his  faith  saves  him,  triumphant  against 
those  errors.  This  principle  I  fully  believe,  or  I  should  not 
think  that  even  a  majority  of  the  elect  of  God  would  ever 
get  to  heaven.  There  are  persons  known  to  us,  who  so  live, 
and  so  pray,  that  no  one,  knowing  them,  can,  on  the  whole, 
doubt  their  piety  ;  while  they  have  some  incidental  faults, 
and  some  blundering  and  preposterous  opinions,  which,  if  the 
conditions  of  salvation  were  correct  erudition,  extensive  sci- 
ence, and  clear  and  true  philosophy,  instead  of  cordial  faith 


PIlILUHOl'lIY    Ol'    KMMONhl.  li)3 

ill  the  testimonies  and  the  promises  of  God,  would  certainly 
condemn  and  destroy  them  forever.  I  bless  God  for  his  own 
gracious  and  glorious  doctrine  of  faith  in  the  name  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  I 

The  preacher,  on  the  occasion  which  I  am  now  to  relate, 
was  meeting  a  county  Bible  Society  in  one  of  our  rural  neigh- 
borhoods, and  a  collection  Avas  to  be  made  for  the  glorious 
object  immediately  after  the  sermon.  His  text  was  i.  Tim. 
2  :  4,  and,  in  descant  on  the  words  who  will  have  all  men 
to  be  saved,  good  and  lovely  a  brother  as  he  was,  he  resorted 
to  his  philosophy  for  the  solution  of  its  difficulties  ;  instead  of 
viewing  it  in  a  practical  way,  as  the  counterpart  to  the  or- 
der. Go,  preaclt,  the  gosjyel  to  every  creattire .  But  we,  who 
believe  that  u-isdom  is  the  principal  thi?ig,  may  have  no 
objection  to  philosophy,  if  it  be  only  genuine,  and  wlioUy  of 
the  right  kind,  baptized  into  the  tiame  of  the  Father,  and 
of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  Amen  ;  and  so  both  .sub- 
ordinate and  subservient  to  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus. 

The  preacher  was  not  so  much  an  Emmonsite,  as  tinc- 
tured, almost  unconsciously,  with  that  philosophy  ;  and  so  de- 
monstrating how  insidiously  it  spreads,  and  how  potentially 
it  pervades  and  operates  the  very  orthodoxy  of  our  country, 
especially  of  New  England,  where  he  was  born  and  educa- 
ted ;  and  where,  or  here,  as  a  son  of  that  time-honored  dis- 
trict of  bur  nation,  he  was,  in  the  main,  only  an  ornament 
and  a  eulogium  to  his  native  soil  and  his  venerable  Alma 
Mdter.  Sound,  and  good,  and  devout  ministers  of  the  gospel, 
in  spite  of  their  imperfections,  and  even  of  their  incidental 
faults,  are  an  honor  and  a  guard  to  the  country — reiimhlica 
decus  et  tutamen  ;  instead  of  armies,  and  fortifications,  and 
treasures,  they  are  the  cluiriots  of  Israel,  and  the  horsemen 
tJiereof 

The  problem  that  met  him  was  to  show  how  it  is  that 
God  wills  all  men  to  he  saved,  and  yet  so  many  are  lost. 
Oh  I  quick  as  flash,  and  flashy  as  quick,  he  told  us  just  how. 

I 


It<i  A     PdPLLAR     PKEACHKR. 

In  itself  considered,  he  desires  and  wills  it ;  all  things  con- 
fidered,  he  desires,  and  wills,  and  infinitely  prefers  the  con- 
trary ;  in  relerence,  that  is,  to  all  the  finally  lost.  And  in 
liis  honest  elucidation,  he  so  extensively  and  learnedly  show- 
ed how  desirable  it  was  for  the  good  of  the  universe,  that, 
all  things  considered,  so  many  should  finally  perish,  that  one 
would  think  his  demonstrations  almost  sufficient,  not  only  to 
dry  the  tears  that  Jesus  shed  over  the  lost  souls  in  Jerusa- 
lem, but  even  to  rebuke  those  tears,  as  hugely  unphilosophic- 
al  —  at  least,  as  destitute  remarkably,  and  quite  vacant,  of 
all  the  bloomer  glories  of  his  philosophy.  What  a  pity  that 
the  preacher  had  not  been  wise  enough  to  substitute  some- 
thing akin  to  those  tears  in  his  sermon  for  that  philosophy — 
that  ruined  it. 

After  the  sermon  and  the  collection,  two  aged  and  respect- 
able men,  standing  honorable  and  even  high  in  the  Church, 
on  their  return  to  their  own  homes,  as  pedestrians,  thus  com- 
muned :  only  that  I  would  also  premise  that  the  esquire  had 
been  nurtured  and  habituated  in  such  principles  of  parsimony, 
that  others  could  hardly  appreciate  in  him  any  better  quali- 
ties which  probably  he  possessed — his  ideas  being  educated 
to  circulate  several  times  round  the  circumference  of  a  pica- 
yune, before  he  could  consent  to  part  with  it,  ordinarily,  even 
to  God  himself,  as  represented  in  his  cause.  I  give  the  dia- 
logue, virtually,  just  as  it  actually  occurred,  sometimes  the 
very  words. 

Neighbor.  Well,  'squire,  we  had  a  good  sermon  to-day  from 
that  new  preacher.  I  have  heard  much  of  him,  and  so  I  de- 
sired to  hear  him.     He  seemed  to  make  his  points  clear. 

Esquire.  Did  he  answer  your  expectations  ? 

N.  Yes,  partly  he  did,  partly  not.  He  is  a  smart  man, 
however,  and  seems  to  know  every  thing — only  he  was  rath- 
er too  learned  and  too  metaphysical  for  me.  And,  speaking 
plainly,  after  all,  I  should  have  liked  him  more  if  he  had 
been  more  in  earnest  as  to  his  object,  if  he  had  anv.      Per- 


DIALOGUE    ABOUT    IMS    SERMON.  195 

haps  some  commoner  preacher  would  have  benefited  more 
the  cause,  and  made  us  more  value  the  Bible,  and  more  feel 
the  importance  and  the  blessedness  of  giving  it  to  others. 
There  was  a  kind  of  a  wantage  in  it. 

E.  I  was  struck  with  his  argument,  and  I  own  the  power 
and  eloquence  of  his  reasoning.  But  it  still  seemed  to  lack 
something,  I  scarce  know  what,  to  make  it  a  first-rate  ser- 
mon for  such  an  occasion.  He  had  many  ministers  to  hear 
him,  because  he  was  so  great,  or  so  new,  in  these  parts  ;  but 
I  thought,  somehow,  that  I  could  name  any  one  of  five  or 
six  there,  not  half  so  celebrated,  or  honorable,  or  learned,  or 
traveled  as  the  preacher,  who  would  have  surpassed  him,  at 
least  in  a  useful  and  effective  discourse.  How  large  a  col- 
lection was  it  ? 

N.  Not  very  great,  I  think.  The  people  gave  in  a  lan- 
guid way,  though  there  were  so  many  in  his  audience.  Hoav- 
ever  he  might  have  enlightened  their  understandings,  he 
certainly  did  not  rouse  their  affections,  or  move  their  feelings 
at  all. 

E.  Whitfield  used,  they  say,  to  get  large  collections  from 
his  auditors,  by  inducing  them  to  double,  treble,  or  quintuple, 
successively,  what  they  at  first  thought  to  be  the  maximum 
of  all  propriety  and  power.  I  certainly  gave  no  more  than  I 
at  first  purposed,  but  less  only  ;  and  this,  I  thought,  his  ar- 
gument authorized  and  taught,  in  itself  considered. 

N.  Why,  how  is  that,  'squire  ?  Or,  Avould  you  say  how 
much  you  did  give  at  last,  or  how  much  you  purposed  to 
give  at  first,  so  that  the  difference  may  appear  ?  For  one,  I 
should  just  like  to  know. 

E.  I  went  there  expecting  to  give  a  dollar  to  the  cause. 
But  when  I  heard  what  he  said  about  the  benevolence  of 
God,  I  altered  it,  and  finally  gave  sixpence.*  So  there  you 
have  it,  just  the  truth. 

♦  Six  cents. 


196  ITS    LOGICAL    RESULT AND    WORTH. 

N.  Why,  'squire,  you  don't  say  so  I  Why,  was  that  right, 
do  you  think  ?     You — gave  sixpence  ! 

E.  Well,  I  listened  to  his  reasoning  about  willing  them  all 
to  be  saved,  and  then  willing  that  so  many  should  perish, 
and  proving  it  too,  that  they  ought  to  perish  ;  and  it  altered 
my  views  ;  and  so  I  said,  In  itself  considered,  1  would  give 
this  dollar ;  but,  all  things  considered,  I  prefer  to  keep  it  : 
since  otherwise,  it  seems  to  me,  I  should  either  be  more  be- 
nevolent than  God,  or  should  be  counteracting  his  prefer- 
ences, on  the  whole. 

iV.  And  so,  'squire,  you  gave — sixpence  ! 

JS.  Yes,  I  did  ;  I  have  my  dollar  yet  safe  with  me. 

iV.  Well,  I  wish  the  preacher  only  knew  both  the  fact  and 
the  reason  of  it.  How  much  he  got  in  the  aggregate,  I  do 
not  know.  But  if  the  effect  ansAvered  to  the  cause,  I  should 
think  that,  all  things  considered,  the  collection  was  a  very 
slim  one. 

S.  I  feel  not  quite  sure  that  I  did  right,  after  all. 

JV.   I  feel  very  much  as  you  do  on  that  point,  'squire. 

E.  Then  I  think  I  went  according  to  the  doctrine. 

N.  And  yet,  in  itself  considered,  it  seems  a  pity  that  you 
did  not  give  your  dollar  to  the  Lord,  when  you  purposed  at 
first  to  do  it,  and  then  leave  other  matters  to  Him,  to  take 
care  of  them  all  as  He  knows  how,  and  save  as  many  as  He 
sees  good,  at  last. 


Before  I  leave  the  subject,  there  remains  to  be  viewed  one 
result  of  the  system  of  Emmons,  which  I  have  myself  wit- 
nessed in  actual  life,  and  in  many  instances  as  connected  with 
its  injuries.  I  speak  of  it  as  a  fruit  of  the  system  for  these 
reasons, 

(1)  The  men  who  exemplified  it  Avere  characteristically 
saturated  Avith  the  system  as  its  devout  admirers. 

(2)  They  professed  thence  to  derive  it,  and  almost   said 


HOLY    WILLINGNESS    TO    SIN.  197 

that  the  millennium  could  never  come  till  Emmonsism  should 
bring  it  ? 

(3)  I  never  heard  of  any  others  so  occupied  or  influenced. 

(4)  It  is  my  deliberate  conviction  that  the  system  naturally 
inspires,  and  legitimately  warrants  it  as  its  own  fair  result. 

It  is  their  own  theologico-experimental  problem — how  shall 
I  rule  it  so  as  always  to  have  "  a  holy  willingness  to  sin,"  and 
no  other  willingness  than  a  holy  one  ?  Oh  !  Bishop  Butler, 
President  Edwards,  Dr.  Chalmers,  or  who  can  tell  us  I  who 
solve  it  ? 

They  saw  the  beltistic  excellence  of  their  sins,  all  things 
considered  ;  and  some  of  them,  as  self-love  was  such  a  sin, 
were  pragmatically  ready,  and  hypothetically  desirous  to  con- 
ditionate  their  eternal  damnation  in  honor  of  the  sovereignty 
of  THEIR  God,  in,  majorem  Dei  gloriam,  to  the  everlasting 
benefit  of  the  universe,  or  being  in  general.  This  gave  them 
a  very  serene  or  a  very  severe  delight  and  consolation  in 
memory  of  their  sins,  exactly  so  far  as  they  had  committed 
them  ;  which  consolation  became  rather  a  perfidious  element, 
sometimes  in  their  economical  and  actual  management. 
They  had  some  reason,  as  it  now  and  then  appeared,  to  fear 
that  their  disinterested  contributions  to  the  good  of  the  Avhole 
in  that  way  might  be  rather  superabundant,  somewhat  more 
than  was  theocratic  ally  requisite  in  the  best  possible  system. 
Besides,  their  serenity,  so  self-sacrificing  in  sinning  discreetly, 
just  quantum  sufficeret,  in  order  to  that  end,  was  sometimes 
disturbed  by  a  non-metaphysical  twinge  and  a  rather  rudely- 
taught  and  uncivilized  remorse  of  conscience  ;  a  twinge  that 
abruptly  told  them,  "  there — hold  !  enough,  possibly  just  a  lit- 
tle too  much  of  it !"  and  hence  the  grand  desideratum — to 
know  what,  and  how  much  at  all  times,  and  then  to  do  just 
enough  and  no  more,  just  such  and  no  other,  in  one's  ordinary 
practice.  Hence  the  problem,  so  marvelously  difficult  to  solve, 
about  this  terra  incogfiita,  or  moral  El  Dorado,  of  a  holy  wil- 
lingness TO  SIN  ;  monstrum — cui  hwien  adeinptiirn  ! 


198  WILLING    TU    BL    ACCLR3ED    FROM    CHRIST. 

Wisdom  that  cometh  from  above,  is  this  1 

The  way  of  piety  to  endless  bliss  1 

Rather  'tis  false,  factitious,  counterfeit ; 

In  learning's  costume  an  ignoble  cheat. 

It  vUifies  the  holiness  of  God, 

Or  is  what  truth  and  grace  may  not  applaud : 

Its  light  extinct,  or  into  darkness  changed, 

And  all  its  sympathy  from  Christ  estranged. 

We  leave  its  subtleties,  take  wisdom's  road, 

And  search  the  scrtptukes  for  the  path  to  God. 

The  expression  in  our  version,  /  coidd  icish  that  myself 
were  accursed  from  Christ  for  my  brethren,  my  kinsmen 
according  to  the  flesh,  has  been  a  great  crux  interpretum, 
or  plague  and  shame  to  interpreters,  in  almost  every  age  and 
place  where  its  exegesis  has  been  attempted.  Dr.  Chalmers 
waves  its  hermeneutical  analysis,  and  treats  it  eloquently  and 
well,  but  in  a  practical  Avay  alone.  "With  Dr.  Emmons,  Dr. 
Hopkins,  and  their  class,  it  has  become  a  grand  rallying  point, 
and  a  normal  demonstration  in  their  favor.  But  have  they 
interpreted  it  correctly  ?  Their  argument  is,  that  Paul  was 
willing,  conditionally,  to  be  eternally  damned*  for  his  breth- 
ren, if"  that  could  save  or  benefit  them  at  all,  as  the  result ; 
that  this  is,  in  its  own  nature,  a  specimen  of  genuine  holi- 
ness or  benevolence,  and  virtue  divine  ;  that  it  is  written  as 
an  example  and  a  standard  for  our  imitation  and  trial ;  that 
any  man,  who  has  none  of  the  same,  has  no  true  reUgion  ; 
that  we  ought  to  examine  ourselves  in  view  of  such  a  test, 
and  not  hope  at  all,  unless  we  can  stand  it ;  that  this  is  an 
instance  of  what  they  mean  by  disinterested  benevolence  ; 
that  nothing  but  selfishness  can  have  any  objection  to  it ; 
and  that,  as  it  is  a  fact  recorded  here  for  our  instruction,  and 
in  its  own  nature  perfectly  cardinal,  it  ought  to  be  used  and 
magnified  in  the  Church  of  God,  by  preachers  and  hearers, 
as  the  grand  and  superlative  test  of  Christian  character,  in- 
comparably superior  to  the  diluted  and  insipid  specimens  or- 
*  Pronounce  in  two  syllables,  dam-ned. 


MOST    UNHAPPILY    RENDKKED.  1 'J9 

dinarily  in  vogue  in  its  place  as  its  rivals  and  its  substi- 
tutes. 

In  reply  to  all  this,  we  aver,  with  positive  conviction,  that 
all  their  reasoning  is  based  on  moonshine,  stupidity,  and  in- 
tolerable blundering ;  that  Paul  never  thought  of  such  in- 
effable monstrosity  of  nonsense  and  impiety  ;  that  the  original 
contains  or  asserts  no  such  thing  ;  that,  of  all  the  theoretic 
ventures  about  its  native  sense,  the  views  of  this  school  are 
incomparably  the  most  stupid  and  the  worst ;  and  that  there 
hardly  ever  was  broached  in  the  Church  of  God  an  error 
more  enormous,  a  position  more  abominable,  or  a  hypothesis 
more  impossible  than  theirs. 

It  is  only  a  poor  shadow  of  an  excuse  for  their  error,  that 
our  rendering  is,  indeed,  as  ungrammatical,  as  untheological, 
and  as  unreasonable,  as  it  well  can  be.  Why  did  they  study 
Greek,  if  they  never  use  so  richly  a  professional  acquisition  ? 
If  also  the  science  of  hermeneutics,  or  scientific  interpretation, 
can  not  render  the  true  sense,  then  can  it  never  be  demon- 
strated or  known  on  the  earth.  It  is  another  shadow  of  apol- 
ogy, that  interpreters  of  eminence,  ancient  and  modern,  for- 
eign and  vernacular,  so  blunder  and  so  differ,  as  a  general 
thing,  in  regard  to  it.  In  our  own  country,  we  have  Barnes, 
Stuart,  Hodge,  all  different ;  and  all  wrong — as  we  must  take 
leave  to  say,  in  attempting  its  exposition. 

All  our  present  punctuation  is  modern  and  uninspired. 
Yet  punctuation  is  commentarj'.  It  affects,  modifies,  often 
determines,  and  sometimes  hugely  perverts,  the  sense.  The 
writings  of  Paul  abound  in  figures  of  speech,  orientalisms, 
elhpses,  parentheses,  and  hyperboles,  in  wonderful  fullness 
and  singular  variety.  Here,  especially,  a  parenthesis  occurs  ; 
which,  duly  indicated  and  observed,  and  the  other  and  re- 
lated parts  just  rendered  with  school-boy's  common  sense, 
when  he  knows  his  lesson,  the  sentence  then  is  indeed  em- 
phatic and  remarkable — ^but  it  ceases  to  shock  our  moral  con- 
sciousness ;   to  rebel  against  the  analogy  of  faith  ;  to  perpe- 


iiOO  \t)Xi:     UlLLI\(i    TV    BE    DAMNED. 

irate  absurdity  ;  or  to  dictate  a  test  of  piety,  which,  we  are 
sure,  no  man  on  earth  or  in  heaven  can  either  stand  or  go, 
who  is  neither  deceived,  nor  inconsiderate,  nor  lunatic,  nor  in 
sport,  nor  an  active  hypocrite — and  then  he  can  not,  either  I 
We  would  so  render  it :  Brethren,  I  say  the  truth  in  Christ, 
I  lie  not,  my  conscience  also  bearing  me  vntness  in  the  Holy 
Ghost,  that  I  have  great  heaviness  and  continual  sorrow 
in  my  heart  — for  I  myself  was  glorying  to  be  anathema 
from  Christ — for  my  brethren,  my  kinsmen  according  to 
the  ficsh,  icho  are  Israelites,  and,  as  such,  so  specially  pre- 
ferred and  so  grandly  distinguished  in  the  sovereign  provi- 
dence of  God. 

On  this  I  remark, 

1.  That  the  idea  of  suffering  perdition  for  the  Jews,  the 
mighty  monstrosity  of  the  Emmons  view,  is  here  justly  va- 
cated and  forever  precluded.  He  was  sorry  so  intensely  for 
his  brethren  ;  not  wished  perdition  to  himself  on  their  ac- 
count, as  if  sin  and  folly  could  be  their  salvation  I  The  great 
blinder  of  eyes  here  has  been  to  associate  two  elements  of 
thought  directly  which  have  no  direct  relation  to  each  other 
at  all  I  These  two  are,  his  intense  grief  and  his  being  anath- 
ema from  Christ.  Whereas,  the  former,  not  the  latter,  is /or 
my  brethren,  my  kinsmen  according  to  tlie  flesh  ;  that  is, 
his  sorrow  was  for  them — not  his  anathema  for  them  I  His 
anathema  from  Christ  is  only  a  great  and  accessory  idea, 
connected  with  the  intensity  of  his  grief ;  as  if  he  should  say, 
1  grieve  for  them  so  much,  and  so  intensely,  because  my 
memory  supplies  me  with  experimental  recollections  of  their 
present,  drawn  from  my  own  past — Since  I  was,  previous  to 
my  conversion,  exactly  in  their  horrid  predicament ;  I  was 
alienated,  infatuated,  treasuring  up  xorath  against  the  clay 
ofivrath,  and  cumulatively  ripening  for  ultimate  destruction. 
Why,  then,  should  I  not  feel  for  them  with  intense  affliction  ? 
They  are  my  countrj'men,  my  kinsmen,  my  virtual  brothers 
and  sisters  of  the  progeny  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  ! 


tup:  love  of  christ  greatest  yet.  '201 

though  now  repudiated  by  the  God  of  the  patriarchs  for  their 
cardinal  impiety  in  rejecting  the  Messiah  ;  and  nationally  are 
they,  as  I  also  was,  anathema  from  Chrht,  whom  they  cru- 
cify to  themselves  afresh,  and  put  him  to  an  open  sham,e. 

2.  That  the  idea  of  such  a  sacrifice  is  all  absurdity,  except 
that  it  is  such  impiety  also.  What  could  it  do  for  them,  if 
it  were  performed  ?  What  congruity,  fitness,  or  proper  argu- 
ment in  it  ?  Could  it  atone  ?  or  absolve  ?  or  sanctify  ?  or 
benefit  them  at  all  ?  It  is  only  incongruity,  and  abortion, 
and  impossibility,  instead  of  credible  doctrine.  Why  prefer 
the  worst  of  all  possible  alternatives  ? 

3.  It  is  most  horrible  in  its  relation  to  the  cross  of  Christ, 
and  the  love  that  fixed  him  to  death  on  that  horrid  gibbet, 
for  our  salvation.  It  eclipses  as  well  as  disparages  infinite- 
ly the  Savior,  in  comparison  Avith  the  greater  self-sacrificing 
of  his  disciple  Paul.  The  former,  our  precious  Redeemer. 
laid  down  his  life,  that  he  might  take  it  again  for  us  ;  the 
latter  desires  to  be  an  eternal  anathema  from  salvation,  for 
his  countrymen  and  his  kinsmen — especially  as  it  could  do 
them  no  conceivable  good,  but  harm  only,  should  he  attempt 
the  impossibility  and  the  nonsense,  or  even  should  he  perform 
it !  But,  says  Christ,  Greater  love  hath  no  one  tlia7i  this, 
that  one  lay  down  his  life  for  his  friends.  Nothing  is  plain- 
er than  that,  in  the  view  we  oppose,  the  love  of  Paul  just 
INFINITELY  AND  ETERNALLY  trauscends  the  love  of  Christ  I 
If  this  redifctio  ad  absurdiwi  will  not  answer,  we  care  not 
for  any  other  consideration.     But  we  observe, 

4.  That  the  translation  is  very  incorrect  and  faulty,  no  mat- 
ter how  induced. 

First.  The  word  wish  is  unhappy,  as  specific  for  generic  ; 
since  the  original  word  evxofiat  is  generic,  and  means  sev- 
eral other  things,  as  glorior,  jacto,  dico,  opto,  aftecto,  precor, 
ostento  me  esse,  ago  quasi,  and  so  forth  ;  each  of  which  is 
perhaps  superior  and  preferable. 

SecoJid.  The  mood  is  false  in  our  version,  as  badly  sug- 
I  2 


202  GRAMMAR    OF    THE    ORIGINAL. 

gestive,  and  as  conditional — could.  In  the  Ctreek,  it  is 
INDICATIVE  SIMPLY  I  Hot  optative  at  all ;  not  subjunctive,  not 
potential,  not  hypothetical,  not  conditional  at  all.  It  simply 
asserts  a  fact  that  Avas — and  so  it  should  be  rendered  in  En- 
glish. It  is  a  direct  historical  averment  of  what  he  was  do- 
ing !  The  tense  is  simply  imperfect,  or  past  present ;  as,  / 
was  so  acting,  or  sho^cing,  or  affecting,  at  the  time  of  which 
I  speak. 

Third.  The  object  of  the  verb  is  factitiously  suppHed  in 
our  version,  and  exists  not  in  the  original.  What  did  he 
wish  ?  oh  !  that  myself  were  accursed  from  Christ !  that  is, 
xoish  myself  to  be  accursed.  No  such  thing  I  nor  the  shad- 
ow of  it,  in  the  original. 

Fourth.  The  subject  of  the  verb  is  attenuated  and  lost, 
making  the  object  of  it  false  in  an  alien  gloss.  In  the  orig- 
inal, the  subject  of  the  verb  is  very  emphatically  and  emi- 
nently Paul  himself;  rjvxofJ'ijv  yap  dvTog  ey  w ;  the  verb  of 
affirmation  put  first,  and  then  the  emphatic  nominative.  It 
is  literally  I  myself ,  or  myself  I ;  yes,  even  I,  who  now  am 
going  to  glory,  and  nothing  shall  be  able  to  separate  me  from 
the  love  of  God  tvhich  is  in  Ch^'ist  Jestis  mir  Lord,  even  I 
once  acted  as  madly,  and  as  desperately,  and  as  impiously  as 
they  do  ;  yes  I  I  myself  did  the  same  sin  and  folly  ;  actually 
/  myself  gloried  to  be  anathema  from  Christ :  and  hence 
my  grief  is  experimental  ibr  them,  who  are,  as  I  was — but 
am  not. 

The  whole  of  Macknight's  theory  rests  on  a  gi-ammatical 
assertion,  bald,  and  unsupported  by  the  shadow  of  a  reason 
— refutatio7ie  indignum  est.  There  are  plenty  of  Jews  and 
other  infidels,  alas  I  who  show  this  very  desperation  at  the 
present  day.  All  they  that  hate  me  love  death  ;  they  love 
to  be  anathema  from  Christ.  That  is,  they  practically  do  it. 
They  act  as  if  that  were  their  motive ;  since  they  use  the 
very  means  to  that  end,  and  insure  that  result  as  certainly  as 
if  they  aimed  at  it  alone.     In  general,  the  wholp  Jewish 


SINNEKS    ALL    DISINTERESTED.  203 

world  are  now  glorying  to  be,  as  they  actually  arc,  anathema 
from  Christ.     John,  3  :  18  ;  Rom.  10  :  1-3,  21  ;   H  :  14. 
Fools  that  against  my  grace  rebel, 
Seek  death,  and  love  the  road  to  hell. 
In  the  strong  language  of  a  natural,  and  especially  an  ori- 
ental rhetoric,  theij  all  glory  to  be  anathema  from  ChriU. 
They  do  this  practically,  and  they  may  all  achieve  it  ulti- 
mately.    Hence  each  that  was  doing  it  once  with  them,  and 
now  repents  of  it,  will  naturally  have  deep,  experimental  sor- 
row for  them  in  his  heart,  especially  for  his  near  relatives ; 
the  more  intense  as  he  better  recollects  what  himself  was  and 
did,  when  exactly  in  their  sympathy  and  madness  ;  and  as 
he  loves  them  intensely,  on  every  natural  account,  as  his  own 
flesh  and  blood. 

One  test  of  a  parenthesis  :  abstract  it,  put  the  extremes 
together,  and  the  sense  is  good,  even  if  seeming  incomplete ; 
thus,  I  have  agony  in  my  heart — for  my  brethren.  Then  in- 
sert the  words  or  sense  ;  thus — for  I  myself  was  once  as  bad, 
and  acted  with  a  desperation  as  tremendous  I 

In  this  strong  style  of  speech  there  is  still  a  naturalness  of 
figure,  a  metonymy  of  the  consequence  for  the  aim,  as  if  one 
meant  to  do  that,  in  purpose  and  in  plan,  which  he  does  in 
result  and  in  fact.  The  schoolmaster  reproves  his  pupils  for 
their  inattention  and  their  sloth,  saying,  Do  you  mean  to  be 
grown  fools  or  simpletons  in  a  few  years  ?  since  such  will  be 
the  consequence  of  your  present  actions.  A  general  in  the 
field  chides  a  false  movement  of  his  colonels  ;  thus.  Do  you 
desire  to  help  the  enemy  ?  Why  will  you  be  such  traitors  to 
your  country  ?  But  all  these  specimens,  though  illustrative 
and  analogous,  are  Aveak,  we  own,  compared  with  that  ca- 
reer of  desperate  madness  in  which  sinners,  defying  the  word 
of  God,  act  voluntarily  and  wantonly,  as  if  they  gloried  to  in- 
duce that  perdition  which  is  the  certain  consequence  of  their 
reckless  unbelief.  Hence  rousing  and  terrible  language  is 
there  in  place,  or  it  never  can  be.      Ye  put  it  from  yoK .  and 


204  THEY    PRACTICALLY    DESIKE    PERDlTIOrf. 

judge  yourselves  unworthy  of  everlasting  life;  that  is,  yo 
do  this  practically  —  ye  act  as  if  ye  meant  it — ye  perpe- 
trate spiritual  suicide — ye  crucify  the  Son  of  God  afresh, 
atid  put  him  to  ati  open  shame;  ye  act  as  {{glorying  to  he 
anathona  from  Christ. 

If  one  object  that  they  never  mean  to  do  this,  have  no  such 
thought  or  aim  ;  I  reply,  true  ;  but, 

(1)  This  is  the  natural  and  the  necessary  result  of  their 
chosen  course. 

(2)  Of  this  the  evidence  is  superabounding,  and  the  cer- 
tainty divine,  in  the  scriptures  of  truth. 

(3)  Sirmers  are  fully  vv'arned  of  their  hastening  doom. 

(4)  They  are  perfectly  free  and  active  in  prosecuting  the 
means  to  such  an  end. 

(5)  Their  ignorance  is  guilty  and  voluntary  —  of  these 
things  they  icillingly  are  ignorant. 

(6)  The  desperation  of  such  a  course  is  without  all  paral- 
lel conceivably  in  the  universe  of  God ;  and  the  strongest 
language  of  description,  remonstrance,  and  protest  is  only 
weak  and  poor  to  do  justice  to  its  horror  and  its  crime.  They 
practically  glory  to  be  anathema  from  Christ. 

But  why  asseverate  so  solemnly  ?  why  begin  with  such  a 
spontaneous  and  terrible  oath  ?     Answer — 

On  the  scheme  of  Emmons  it  were  just  infinitely  disgust- 
ing, revolting,  effete,  absurd  !     But — 

The  Jews,  of  whom,  rather  than  to  whom,  he  here  writes, 
hated  him  with  a  terrible  malignity.  Reason,  nature,  and 
history  would  anticipate  only  a  vengeful  retaliation.  But 
grace  gave  him  very  different  affections ;  at  once  kind  and 
God-like.  This  was  singular,  almost  incredible  ;  and  if  true, 
demonstrative  of  the  glory  of  Christ  in  the  gospel.  Well, 
says  the  apostle,  it  is  rare,  but  yet  true.  I  say  the  truth  in 
Christ,  I  lie  not,  my  co7iscience  also  beari7ig  one  icitness 
in  the  Holy  Ghost,  that  I  have  great  heaviness  and  con- 
tinual sorrow  in  my  heart — for  my  brethren,  my  kinsmen 


OBJECTION    OF    STUART.  205 

according  to  the  flesh,  ivho  are  Israelites  ;  and  so  onward  to 
the  culmination  of  the  glorious  climax  in  Christ,  who  is  over 
all,  God  blessed  forever. 

In  reference  to  this  view,  which  we  are  sure  is  the  onlj 
probable  or  true  one,  I  must  here  relate  a  very  important  and 
illustrative  fact.  In  the  month  of  June,  1829,  not  very  long 
before  Stuart  on  Ro7nans  appeared,  I  was  at  Andover,  and 
dined  with  the  learned  and  the  excellent  Professor  Stuart, 
alone.  The  conversation  turned  on  this  very  passage.  He 
exacted  my  view,  and  I  gave  it,  just  as  it  is  here,  for  sub- 
stance of  doctrine.  I  expressed  the  hope  that  his  forthcom- 
ing volume  would  settle  the  matter  with  this  celebrated  and 
difficult  passage.  After  hearing  my  view,  this  Avas  his  com- 
mentary on  it,  as  follows  : 

2.  On  your  view,  my  dear  sir,  I  can  say,  that,  in  general, 
I  approve  it.  It  is  at  once  reasonable,  hermeneutical,  and 
practical.     I  have,  on  the  whole,  but  one  objection  to  it. 

1.  And  if  that  one  could  be  answered,  you  Avould  think  it 
then  the  best  view  ?     Is  it  so,  my  dear  professor  ? 

2.  I  certainly  should,  since  there  is  but  one  objection  to  in 
of  any  respectability  known  to  me  ;  yet  that  is  a  great  one. 

1.  My  dear  sir,  let  me  hear  it ;  this  is  much,  from  you. 

2.  It  is  this — the  sense  it  gives  to  a-nh,  from,  in  the  pas- 
sage. I  think  from  implies  not  distance  only,  or  existing 
separation  or  antagonism  ;  but  antecedent  inbeing,  or  that 
he  was  in  Christ  at  the  time  of  his  wish  or  glory  to  be  anath- 
ema//"Otw.  him.     If  this  be  so,  it  is  fatal  to  your  view. 

1.  And  if  it  be  not  so,  my  plan  of  interpretation  is  endorsed 
the  best,  by  the  honored  and  the  learned  Rabbi  Moses,  of  An- 
dover I  I  would  be  modest  in  your  presence,  my  learned  and 
honored  friend,  but  you  will  allow  me  also  to  be  free  where 
the  truth  is  in  question.  Well,  then,  I  am  surprised  at  your 
objection  ;  and  view  it  only  as  flax  to  the  fire,  if  tested  in  the 
crucible  of  the  tcsus  loqtiendi  of  scripture  or  the  classics. 
'Atto  is  used  there  just  &%from  in  English,  in  kind  if  not  in 


206  USAGE  OF  airo. 

quantity  of  instances,  for  distance  or  difference  in  comparison, 
with  or  without  all  antecedent  inbeing,  conjunction,  simi- 
larity, or  relation.  The  sun  is  ninety-five  millions  of  miles 
from  the  earth ;  our  modern  pretenders,  lords  in  lawn,  are 
vastly  different /rowt  the  primitive  apostles  of  Christ ;  I  re- 
vere the  ancestors y>o??j  whom  I  am  descended  ;  we  are  some 
twelve  thousand  miles  or  more /row  our  antipodes ;  our  north- 
ern explorers  in  the  arctic  regions  will  always  remain  many 
miles //o/^i  the  central  pole  ;  may  we  all  be  kept/;w;i  neol- 
ogy, and  popery,  and  Emmonsism. 

2.  Well,  now  go  to  scripture. 

1.  I  will ;  but  there  you  seem  to  me  like  our  Baptist  sages 
on  the  text,  he  xoent  u'p  st7-aighUcay  out  of  the  water  ;  from 
it,  a-nb.  There  they  see,  through  their  imagination,  not  only 
"  antecedent  inbeing,"  but  the  previous  piety  and  luxury  of 
a  total  submersion  in  the  wave  of  the  Jordan  ;  as  the  whole 
charm  of  their  lamentable  blunder,  and  their  blinding  self- 
commitment,  and  their  shameful  schism,  and  their  fatiguing 
childishness.  But  the  innocent  preposition  teaches  no  such 
thing,  as  you  know ;  any  more  than  his  going  up  into  a 
mountain,  tlq  to  opoq,  means,  he  burrowed  into  it  a  mile 
or  so  under  ground.  Besides,  my  dear  sir,  in  that  same  chap- 
ter. Matt.  3:7,  John  the  Baptist  says.  Who  luxth  warned 
you  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come  ?  arro  ;  not  a  case  of  an- 
tecedent inbeing,  this  I  In  Acts  13:8,  we  are  told  that 
Elymas,  the  sorcerer,  ivithstood  them,  seeking  to  turn  away 
the  deputy  from  the  faith.  Now  Sergius  Paulus,  the  dep- 
uty, though  a  prudent  man,  was  a  heathen ;  and  neither 
was  he  antecedently  in  the  faith,  nor  the  faith  in  him ;  no 
inbeing  here,  in  the  usus  loquendi  of  a-nb.  Looking  dili- 
gently lest  any  man  fail  of  the  grace  of  God.  Heb.  12:15. 
To  fail  here,  ju^  rif  vorepiov,  means  to  come  short  of  it ;  to  be 
ahnost  time  enough  for  the  boat  or  the  rail-car,  but  just  too 
late  ;  just  to  miss  your  passage  ;  just  to  fail  of  it,  or  from  it ; 
drrd.    No  antecedent  inbeing  here  I     This  is  certainly  usage, 


ANTECEDENT    INBEING,  INDEED.  207 

scriptural  usage  I  as  they  are  all  now  anathema  and  Christ, 
who  do  not  obey  the  gospel,  and  for  them  in  sympathy,  we 
all,  who  love  him,  ought  more  intensely  to  feel ;  and  then,  I 
deem  it,  we  should  all  the  better  know  exactly  what,  Paul 
meant  in  his  tears  of  blood  shed  for  his  countrymen — espe- 
cially in  memory  of  his  former  self !  But,  my  dear  sir,  for- 
give me  for  protracting  the  argument  with  you  I  I  must  say 
that  your  objection  is  not  tenable,  nor,  for  once,  is  its  basis 
true  ;  and  I  come  to  the  result,  that,  te  judice,  my  view  is 
"  the  best  every  way"  that  Moses  Stuart  ever  knew  I 

2.  That  seems  very  fair,  and  1  will  think  of  it. 

1.  I  hope  you  will — on  the  principle,  si  quid  novisti  rec- 
tius  istis,  candidtis  imperii  ;  si  non,  his  utere  mecum. 


Hereabout  our  collocution  ended ;  and  soon  appeared  his 
volume  on  the  principle,  illo  in  loco,  of  antecedent  inbeing  ! 
Non  invideo  !  miror  magis. 

That  Paul  should  ever  have  had  such  a  spasmodic  rabies 
of  transcendental  rodomontade  and  stultiloquent  benevolence* 
after  his  Christian  regeneration,  I  hold  to  be,  a  priori,  of  all 
fantasms  the  wildest ;  transubstantiation  and  apostolical  suc- 
cession themselves — almost — postponed  to  it.  This  is  more 
probable,  as  it  occurs  after  taking  an  oath  of  veracity,  so  sol- 
emn, beyond  all  common  precedent,  as  to  preclude  all  such 
frightful  and  impious  extravagance,  under  the  notion  of  ori- 
ental hyperbole  and  poetical  impressiveness.  By  their  fruits 
is  a  criterion  of  principles  as  well  as  persons,  and  it  is  one 
that  utterly  condemns  the  notion  of  Emmons.  Is  its  fruit  to 
holiness  and  edification  in  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 

Besides,  the  case  of  Moses,  Exod.  32  :  32,  is  not  at  all  par- 
allel.   Emmons  quotes  it  as  one  of  his  hobby  texts,  "  Blot  my 

*  A  strange  specimen  of  words,  I  own ;  but  put  for  a  stranger  and 
a  more  uncouth  specimen  of  thought,  a  rare  and  a  perfectly  abomina- 
ble absurdity ! 


208  PRACTICAL    SENSE    THE    THING. 

name  out  of  the  Book  of  life."  This  utterly  alters  the  words 
and  the  sense.  The  Book  of  life  of  the  Lamb  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  argument.  The  expression  is  merely  proverb- 
ial for  "  forget  me  ;"  or,  as  we  say,  such  a  one  blots  me 
from  his  book :  meaning,  I  am  not  in  his  favor,  as  before. 
The  answer  of  Moses  plainly  refers  to  the  proffer  of  God  to 
promote  him,  instead  of  them  ;  which  Moses,  as  the  typical 
mediator  interceding  for  them,  personally  declines — prefer- 
ring, in  that  respect,  comparatively,  not  to  be  remembered  in 
his  ways!  32  :  10.  But  they  pervert  one  reciprocally  to 
help  the  other,  and  thus  fortify  their  most  unedifying  and 
anti-scriptural  extravagance.  In  the  mean  time,  it  does  im- 
mense damage  to  the  souls  of  men,  doing  evil,  and  only  evil, 
and  tluxt  continualhj,  under  the  subHmest  assumptions  of 
wisdom  and  holiness. 

May  I  be  permitted  here  a  general  reflection  ?  Possibly 
it  might,  or  might  not,  be  readily  conceded  to  a  Christian 
pastor  and  a  practical  minister,  who  has  seen  some  service 
in  the  Church  of  God.  It  is  the  constant  and  the  paramount 
need  of  the  principle  and  the  influence,  in  large  measure,  of 
COMMON  SENSE  and  PRACTICAL  VIEWS,  rather  than  a  serene 
scholasticism,  in  the  interpretation  especially  of  the  written 
oracles  of  God.  Learning  is  great  and  good,  and  very  desir- 
able in  its  place  and  in  its  use — not  out  of  its  place  or  in 
its  insidious  abuse.  Some  men  are  so  learned,  so  full  of 
books,  of  theories,  of  rules  and  exceptions,  of  immense  phi- 
lology, of  technology,  of  pneumatology,  of  psychology,  of  on- 
tology, and  all  the  ologies,  with  hypotheses  and  opinions  of 
great  men,  that  their  common  sense  collapses  in  a  foreign 
and  an  imposing  presence  ;  and  their  plethora  of  authorities 
and  erudition,  ut  helhwnes  librorum,  prevents  the  action  of 
their  own  judgment,  and  precludes  a  just  originality  of 
thought — so  that  their  opinion,  if  they  have  any  that  is  their 
own,  is  a  conglomerate  of  all  their  reading ;  as  stationary  as 
a  weather-cock;  as  true  as  an  old  Turkish  time-piece,  made, 


EMMONriiaM    DREARY    AND    COLD    AW    DEATH.         209 

as  we  are  truly  informed,  to  announce  twelve  whenever  the 
sultan  was  ready  and  in  humor  to  give  his  fiat,  for  the  re- 
sounding of  the  gong,  as  the  signal,  the  oracle,  the  fact. 

All  the  commoner  theories  on  the  passage  in  question  arc 
condemned  by  the  rule  oi  the  fruits  and  common  sense;  so 
far  are  they  from  practical,  natural,  probable,  useful,  on  the 
principles  of  the  best  biblical  interpretation.  They  are  vast- 
ly unprofitable,  therefore,  and  even  derogatory  to  the  high 
and  plenary  inspiration  of  the  written  word.  Yet  what  is 
more  common  or  natural  than  for  an  honest  Christian  phi- 
lanthropy, in  persuading  and  f)cseechi?ig  men  to  be  reconciled 
to  God,  to  refer  with  humiliation  to  its  own  former  experi- 
ence ;  its  recollection  of  its  own  confused  madness  in  a  pre- 
vious state  of  alienation  from  the  life  of  God  ?  nor  is  it 
wonderful,  if  such  an  eloquence  as  Paul  was  wont  to  exem- 
plify, in  this  or  a  similar  relation,  should  teach  the  tremen- 
dous folly  and  the  impious  suicide  of  all  the  rebellious  ene- 
mies of  God,  by  citing  and  impressing  his  own  example  of 
astonishing  anti-Christian  zeal  and  desperation ;  character- 
izing it  as  if  glorying  in  the  destination  it  was  inducing ;  as 
if  acting  with  a  direct  aim  to  the  consequence  so  real  of  his 
course  ;  as  if  coveting  the  condition  of  being  forever  —  an- 
athema from  Christ.  Acts,  9,  1-4  ;  22  :  4,  5  ;  26  :  9-11  ; 
i.  Tim.,  1  :  12-17. 

I  subjoin  the  remark  that  Emmonsism  is  a  dreary,  an  iso- 
lating, pre-eminently  an  unjoyous,  and  a  comfortless  system. 
The  coldest  and  the  most  dissocial  religionists  I  have  ever 
known,  preachers  and  people,  in  the  ranks  of  the  orthodox  ; 
the  most  incapable  of  private  friendship,  and  the  most  desti- 
tute of  the  social  and  the  domestic  loves  and  sympathies, 
their  humanities  and  their  home-born  affections  all  exsic- 
cated, and  precluded,  and  gone,  I  have  seen,  known,  and 
marked,  among  this  especial  class,  as  properly  of  them.  1 
could  distinctly  trace  their  frigidity,  their  rigidity,  and  their 
aridity  to  the  system  that  formed  their  characters.     It  has 


210      COMFORT    A.\D    JOY    IN    GOD    ARE    SANCTIONED. 

almost  ruined  them  for  all  amiableness  and  all  usefulness.  I 
could  give  instances  and  names. 

Nor  toward  God  did  it  seem,  as  1  have  often  explored  it  in 
them,  a  particle  better — they  are  not  happy  in  God,  they 
can  not  be.  "  If  I  am  not  saved,  others  avill  be,"  is  the 
genuine  result — the  whole  of  it.  And  is  this  the  proper  fruit 
of  reading  the  scriptures  ?  which  were  written  for  our  learn- 
ing, that  ive,  through  patience  and  comfort  of  the  scrip- 
tures, might  have  hope.  The  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  ascer- 
tained to  us  in  nine  especial  graces,  of  which  the  first  three, 
and  the  substance  of  all  the  others,  are,  love,  joy,  peace. 
These  are  the  elements  of  substantial  and  eternal  happiness, 
as  well  as  holiness. 

A  system  that  can  not  legitimately  inspire  happiness  or 
make  its  disciples  joyful  in  God,  rejoicing  in  hope,  is  not  the 
gospel.  The  most  edifying  and  comforting  book  in  the  world 
is  the  Bible.  Yes,  for  consolation  and  joy  to  the  soul,  there 
is  nothing  like  it.  It  is  incomparable  every  way  ;  and  no  one 
should  be  content  to  lose  so  much  direct  and  genuine  happi- 
ness as  he  must  who  allows  himself  in  the  sin  of  ignorance, 
touching  the  matter  and  the  manner  of  the  Book  of  God. 
There  is  no  proper  substitute  for  it — or  if,  gentle  reader,  you 
think  you  have  found  any,  burn  it,  for  your  own  better  edifica- 
tion. Christianity  longs  for  the  proficiency  of  its  friends  in  joy 
and  goodness — tliat  their  hearts  might  be  comforted,  being 
knit  together  in  love,  and  to  all  riches  of  the  full  assurance 
of  understanding — that  every  one  of  you  do  shoiv  the  same 
diligence,  to  the  full  assurance  of  hope  to  the  end — now  the 
God  of  hope  fill  you  ivith  all  joy  and  peace  in  believing, 
that  ye  nuxy  abound  in  hope  through  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Ghost — the  God  of  patience  and  comfort — rejoice  i?t  the 
Lord  ahvays,  and  again,  I  say,  rejoice — for  the  kingdo?n  of 
God  is  not  meat  and  drink,  but  righteousness,  and  peace, 
and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 

But  these  exhilarating  and  jubilant  affections  are  not  at 


I,E.\RM\(i     NOT    IMPIOUS.  211 

all  the  fruit  of  his  gelid  metaphysics,  or  of  the  gasconading 
and  the  assumption  of  any  of  the  schoolmen.  Scholasti- 
cism, in  some  of  its  multifarious  phases,  affects  supreme  in- 
telligence, and  a  perfect  oraculous  mastery  in  religion.  Its 
idol  is  philosophy,  assumed  their  own.  We  are  warned  to 
beware  of  its  sway  and  its  deceit. — Col.  2  :  8-10.  After  all, 
it  is  literalizing  and  short-sighted.  Its  magic  is  contracted, 
its  gyromancy  contemptible.  Learning  has  its  highest  func- 
tion, as  well  as  its  purest  nature  and  its  richest  honor,  only 
as  coincident  with  revelation,  because  taught  by  it  and  sub- 
ordinate to  it,  in  all  its  proper  and  its  genuine  manifesta- 
tions. 


ATTESTATION. 


Having  accompanied  my  friend  and  pastor,  Rev.  Dr.  Cox, 
on  the  occasion  here  described,  I  am  constrained  in  duty  to 
say  that  I  view  the  account  given  of  his  interview  with  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Emmons  as  substantially  true  and  correct.  The 
admission  of  error  I  heard  him  make,  as  here  it  is  correctly 
narrated.  The  singularity  and  impressive  nature  of  the 
whole  scene  were  fitted  solemnly  to  impress  me,  as  they  cer- 
tainly did  at  the  time  ;  and  though  fourteen  years  have  since 
flown  over  us,  I  find  my  recollections  sufficiently  vivid  to  au- 
thorize me  in  this  act  as  a  witness. 

Lowell  Holbrook. 

Brooklyn,  New  York,  Aug.  11,  1852. 

P.S. — The  coincidence  is  strange,  but  wholly  undesigned, 
and  was  not  known  or  observed  till  some  time  after  the  above 
was  written,  that  fourteen  years  exactly,  to  a  clay,  mark  the 
period  since  the  interview  to  the  date  of  this  document. 

It  is  strange,  too,  for  an  author  to  anticipate  doubt  or  im- 
peachment to  a  fact  which  he  avers  and  witnesses  in  this 
way  ;  but  stranger  was  the  fact  itself,  and  this  may  well  ac- 
count for  the  mode  and  the  fact  of  anticipation. 

Samuel  H.  Cox. 

Brooklyn,  New  York,  October,  1852. 


INTERVIEWS 


JOHN   QUINCY   ADAMS, 

president  of  the  united  states  : 
September,  1825. 


Hath  not  God  made  foolish  the  wisdom  of  tliis  world?— 1  Cor.  1 :  20. 

The  foolishness  of  God  is  wiser  than  men. — 1  Cor.  1  :  25. 

The  depravity  of  men  is  total  ;  since  we  are  destitute,  as  fallen  creatures,  of  all 
real  virtue,  till,  obeying  the  Gospel,  we  are  sanctified  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  so 
conformed,  in  some  degree  and  for  the  first  time,  to  the  law  of  God  as  the  rule,  and 
the  glory  of  God  as  the  end,  of  our  actions  ;  previous  to  which  simple,  but  great  and 
wonderful  change,  our  depravity  deceives  us  and  others,  working  its  spirituality 
of  evil  deceptively,  latently,  speciously,  and  not  less  efficaciously,  to  make  us  the 
voluntary  captives  and  the  desperate  victims  of  dominant  transgression  and  all  its 
penal  consequences.  This  is  plainly  the  testimony  of  God  in  the  Scriptures,  though 
it  is  opposed  enough  by  unregenerate  men,  and  in  all  unreasonable  ways  enough, 
to  increase,  if  possible,  the  proof  that  amply  sustains  that  humiliating  article  of  our 
faith. — Anon. 

Other  acquisitions  may  be  requisite  to  make  men  great ;  but  be  assured  the  re- 
ligion of  .lesus  is  alone  sufficient  to  make  them  good  and  happy :  *  *  *  a  religion 
which  has  been  adorned  with  the  highest  sanctity  of  character  and  splendor  of  tal- 
ents, which  enrolls  among  its  disciples  the  names  of  Bacon,  Newton,  and  Locke,  the 
glory  of  their  species,  and  to  which  these  illustrious  men  were  proud  to  dedicate  the 
last  and  Ihe  best  fruits  of  their  immortal  genius. — Robert  Hall. 

No  people  can  be  bound  to  acknowledge  and  adore  the  invisible  hand  which  con- 
ducts the  affairs  of  men  more  than  the  people  of  the  United  States.  *  *  *  The  pro- 
pitious smiles  of  Heaven  can  never  be  expected  on  a  nation  that  disregards  the  eter- 
nal rules  of  order  and  right,  which  Heaven  itself  has  ordained. —  Washington. 

True  patriotism  and  true  piety  are  very  congruous,  as  well  as  ornamental,  when 
seen  united  in  an  American  citizen. — Anon. 

Valet  ima  summis 
Mutare,  et  insignem  atlenuat  Deus 
Obscura  promens. — Hor. 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS. 


The  fame  of  this  great  man  belongs  to  the  American  na- 
tion. Among  her  pi-oceres  of  the  Revolution,  or,  rather,  of 
the  age  next  after  it,  he  figures  as  a  star  of  the  first  magni- 
tude. His  lustre  is  original,  characteristic,  real.  As  a  schol- 
ar, a  statesman,  a  patriot,  he  belongs  to  the  first  class,  and 
distinguished  there  in  the  constellation  of  our  country's  great- 
ness. From  March,  1825,  to  the  same  m.onth,  1829,  he  of- 
ficiated as  the  sixth  President  of  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica; and  now,  1852,  the  thirteenth  acting  in  the  administra- 
tiou  of  the  government,  it  may  be  said  that  a  better  informed 
reader,  writer,  and  thinker,  on  the  whole,  never  illustrated 
that  high  place  of  magistracy  or  occupied  more  luminously 
the  seat  of  Washington. 

All  this,  however,  respects  his  secular  character.  We  pro- 
pose as  CONSIDERATIONS,  somc  of  them,  perhaps,  implying 
each  other,  yet  with  a  view  to  distinct  reference  in  subse- 
quent places,  the  following  seven  questions  : 

(1)  What  was  his  interior  man? 

(2)  Was  he  a  Christian  ? 

(3)  Was  he  a  regenerated  person,  according  to  the  conver- 
sation of  the  Son  of  God  with  Nicodemus  ? — John,  3  :  1-21 

(4)  "VMiat  were  his  religious  views  and  sentiments  ? 

(5)  Is  he  now  in  glory,  among  the  ransomed  of  the  Lamb  ? 

(6)  "WTiat  will  be  the  influence  of  his  memory  on  the  Chris- 
tian piety  of  his  country  ? 

(7)  If  not  an  infidel,  like  Jefferson,  was  he  a  sound  Chris 


216       one's  secular  uu  spiritual  character. 

tian,  like  Jackson,*  before  he  left  this  probationary  theatre 
and  met  the  awful  experience  of  the  eternal  Avorld  ? 

One's  secular  is  as  distinct  from  his  spiritual  character,  as 
the  ignorance  of  man  compared  with  the  knowledge  of  God. 
The  two  are,  indeed,  related  ;  not  identical.  By  one's  spirit- 
ual character  is  meant — what  man  is  in  the  sight  of  God,  as 
related  to  the  truth  of  revelation  and  the  hope  of  immortal- 
ity ;  as  a  lover  of  God,  or  as  a  hater  of  God  ;  as  obeying  the 
gospel  ill  the  only  right  way,  or  as  disobeying  it,  finally,  in 
any  way ;  and  as  prepared,  on  the  whole,  for  the  glory  of 
heaven,  or  as  not  prepared  for  it. 

The  secular  character  is  that  which  obtains  among  men, 
depending  on  outside  views  and  human  estimates,  often  tri- 
umphantly high — where  the  spiritual  character  is  low  and 
false,  and  incapable  of  the  divine  approbation  and  reward. 

Of  character  here  two  things  are  to  be  remembered  : 

First.  Its  only  proper  arbiter  is  God. 

Second.  He  will  decide  at  last,  absolutely  and  independ- 
ently, according  to  his  own  truth,  published  to  mankind ; 
since  he  can  not  contradict  himself,  in  time  or  in  eternity. 

Of  the  seven  questions  stated,  this  treatise  refers  mainly  to 
the  fourth  alone.  It  is,  indeed,  related  to  all  the  others — as 
is  each  other  to  each  of  them  ;  and  the  mutual  relations  of 
them  all  are  intimate,  though  not  alike  in  form  legitimated 
to  our  inquiry  or  decision.  As  to  the  fifth,  we  must  leave  it 
entirely  with  God,  and  refer  it,  ex  animo  et  mccum  et  tecum, 
with  solemn  reverence  to  the  developments  of  eternal  judg- 
ment. We  should  remember,  however,  that  there  is  no  re- 
spect of  persons,  places,  titles,  or  circumstances  at  the  Judg- 
ment-seat of  Christ.  This  we  shall,  sooner  or  later,  all  laiow 
and  experience.  Nor  do  we  omit  to  treat  the  fifth  question 
because  we  view  it  as  trivial,  or  as  wholly  unlawful,  or  as 

*  After  retiring  from  public  life,  he  professed  the  religion  of  Christ, 
and  died  happily,  in  full  communion,  as  an  honored  member  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church. 


TWO    WEIGHTY    CONCESSIONS.  217 

characteristic  of  low  and  sordid  principles  ;  or,  as  if  it  were 
not  the  very  one  that,  by  a  necessary  law  of  thought,  as  it 
were  an  inexorable  instinct,  recurs  first  or  second  to  the  mind, 
when  the  death  of  any  individual  is  announced  to  us — es- 
pecially if  he  were  esteemed  by  us,  or  were  a  personage  of 
distinction  and  eminence.  It  is  comparatively  the  only  im- 
portant question  that  can  be  asked  of  one  who  has  made  the 
transition  from  time  to  eternity  !  Alas  I  how  soon — soon — 
soon  —  shall  the  writer  and  the  reader  be  there.  In  less 
than  the  circle  of  one  year,  this  October,  1852,  how  many 
great  men,  a  cluster  of  them,  have  gone  to  their  account — 
as  the  King  of  Hanover  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  in  Eu- 
rope ;  as  Calhoun,  Woodbury,  Clay,  Webster,  in  our  own  coun- 
try ;  to  mention  not  thousands  of  others. 

It  is  my  present  design  to  relate  the  substance  of  a  pro- 
longed interview,  or  series  of  interviews,  with  President  Ad- 
ams, in  which  the  topic  was  religion,  and  mamly  religion 
alone.  It  lasted  for  many  consecutive  hours,  with  several 
occasional  interruptions,  and  with  a  singular  frankness  and 
honesty,  perhaps,  on  both  sides.  As  to  his  errors,  which 
seemed,  indeed,  great  and  even  cardinal,  I  would  remind  th' 
reader  of  two  concessions,  of  which  my  own  thoughts  sincere- 
ly are,  and  this  narrative  may  be,  rightly  availed. 

First.  How  much  of  what  he  said  was  for  the  sake  of  ar- 
gument, or  merely  to  educe  reply,  or  for  the  end  of  experiment 
or  amusement  only,  I  am  unwilling  to  assume,  or  to  decide, 
especially  in  the  aggregate.  How  it  struck  me  at  the  time, 
the  reader  may  infer  as  we  proceed.  I  indeed  have,  even 
when  it  may  not  be  necessary  to  show,  mine  opinion. 

Second.  As  the  conversation  occurred  almost  a  quarter  of 
a  century  before  his  death,  it  is  possible  that  his  vieAvs  may 
have  changed  ;  as  some  say  or  think  that  they  altered  for 
the  better  previous  to  his  exit  from  the  world. 

On  the  seventh  question,  it  is  very  certain  that  he  never 
deliberately  intended  to  be  an  infidel.     His  eloquent  and 

K 


218  MR.   ADAMS    EVER    KIND    TO    ME. 

learned  lecture  on  faith,  which,  with  many  others  I  heard 
him  deliver,  in  this  city,  November  19,  1840,  was  prepared 
expressly,  as  he  personally  assured  me  at  the  time,  to  counter- 
vail some  of  the  more  recent  tendencies  and  demonstrations 
ot"  transcendental  and  rationalistic  impiety,  which  then  were 
fatiguing  the  patience  of  Heaven,  and  figuring  impiously  be- 
fore the  country  :  by  which,  however,  I  mean  not  to  express 
approbation  of  its  doctrines,  or  its  competency  on  such  a  theme. 
On  the  contrary,  it  must  be  viewed  by  all  correct  judges,  by 
all  enlightened  Christians,  as  exceedingly  imperfect,  superfi- 
cial, and  vulnerable. 

After  the  conversations  of  the  interview,  which  I  am  now 
to  describe,  Mr.  Adams,  whether  gratified  or  not,  whether 
benefited  or  not,  was,  I  am  very  sure,  not  personally  offended. 
He  saw  me  often  in  his  subsequent  life  ;  he  frequently,  or 
rather  occasionally,  attended  on  my  public  ministrations,  both 
in  "Washington  and  New  York,  and  always  seemed  courteous 
and  affectionate.  On  one  occasion,  when  my  theme  was  the 
miracles  of  the  gospel — their  credibility,  and  when  I  at- 
tempted a  direct  answer  to  the  argument  of  Hume,  and  in  a 
way,  perhaps,  quite  novel  and  extraordinary,  Mr.  Adams  was 
pleased  to  express  his  approbation,  as  it  were  not  proper  for 
me  to  relate  ;  yet,  as  an  implication  that  he  believed  those 
miracles,  it  was  a  specially  grateful  and  memorable  response. 
February  27,  1844,  he  presided  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives at  Washington,  where,  as  a  delegate  of  the  American 
Bible  Society  at  the  time,  I  addressed  him  in  the  chair,  sup- 
ported by  the  Hon.  John  M'Lean,  of  the  national  judiciary, 
at  a  meeting  of  the  Bible  Society  of  Washington  ;  on  which 
occasion,  his  address,  as  he  opened  the  meeting,  I  will  in  its 
place  subjoin.  It  speaks  for  itself;  and  the  autograph  copy 
which  he  gave  me  I  still  retain  in  honor  among  my  valua- 
ble PAPERS. 

Our  meeting  was  entirely  accidental.  Designated  to  a  pro- 
fessional service  in  the  city  of  Boston,  I  found  myself  on  tho 


OUR    MEETING    AND    JOURNEY.  219 

deck  of  the  steamer  Fulton,  Captain  R.  S.  Bunker,  with 
him,  on  Tuesday,  September  27,  1825,  at  four  o'clock  P.M. 
leaving  New  York.  We  reached  Providence,  Rhode  Island, 
next  day  in  the  afternoon,  and  Boston  at  nine  o'clock  in  the 
evening.  It  was  tkoi  viewed  as  swift  traveling — only  twen- 
ty-nine hours.  We  now  go,  steaming  it  on  land,  in  about 
eight.  If  we  continue  improving  at  this  rate  for  a  few  more 
years,  we  shall  be  in  danger,  before  long,  of  arriving  there 
several  hours  before  we  set  out  I  At  least,  a  great  demon- 
strator, who  has  faith  in  figures,  that  "  will  not  lie,"  and 
faith,  he  says,  in  nothing  else,  is  reported  to  have  come  to 
this  result,  and  to  have  propovmded  it  with  large  confidence 
to  others — proved  by  figures  I 

How  we  traveled  the  land  route  will  be  shown  in  its  place. 
The  object  of  his  tour  was  honorable  to  his  filial  piety — to 
pay  a  visit  to  his  aged  father,  who  died  so  remarkably,  the 
next  year,  simultaneously  with  Jefferson  ;  both  on  the 
FOURTH  OF  July.  He  had  not  then  occupied  the  presiden- 
tial eminence  much  more  than  half  a  year,  and  was  only  in 
the  fifty-ninth  year  of  his  age  —  I  had  just  completed  the 
thirty-second  of  my  own.  He  had  seen  much  of  the  world, 
on  both  sides  of  the  ocean.  He  had  acted  with  mighty  men, 
and  been  occupied  in  scenes  of  national  honor  and  distinction, 
in  courts,  and  camps,  and  cabinets,  at  home  and  abroad.  I 
was  certainly  not  intentionally  deficient  in  respect  for  him  in 
all  these  relations  ;  though  I  knew  of  others,  and  those  the 
highest,  where  it  was  my  edified  conviction  that,  like  an  an- 
cient oriental  emperor,  he  was  probably  weighed  in  the  bal- 
ance and  found  wanting. 

La  Fayette,  as  "  the  guest  of  the  nation,"  had  just  accom- 
plished his  gratefal  and  jubilant  visit  to  the  land  he  had  so 
magnanimously  aided  in  its  Revolutionary  crisis,  and  so  joy- 
ously gratulated  in  its  culminating  prosperity.  Having  been 
received  in  every  part  of  the  country  with  the  warmest  ex- 
pressions of  delight  and  enthusiasm,  his  presence  was  every 


220  RETURN    OF    LA    FAYETTE. 

where  the  signal  for  festivals  and  rejoicings.  He  passed 
through  the  twenty-four*  states  of  the  Union  in  a  sort  of  tri- 
umphal procession,  in  which  all  parties  joined  to  forget  their 
dissensions — in  which  the  veterans  of  the  war  renewed  their 
youth,  and  the  young  M'ere  carried  back  to  the  doings  and 
the  suHerings  of  their  fathers.  Having  celebrated,  at  Bunk- 
er Hill,  the  anniversary  of  the  first  conflict  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, and,  at  Yorktown,  that  of  its  closing  scene,  in  which  he 
himself  had  borne  so  conspicuous  a  part ;  having  taken  leave 
of  the  four  ex-presidents  of  the  United  States,  he  received  the 
farewell  of  the  president  in  the  name  of  the  nation,  and  sail- 
ed from  the  capital  in  a  frigate,  named,  in  comphment  to 
him,  the  Bkandywine,  September  7,  1825.  His  embarka- 
tion and  return  were  then  a  topic  of  freshness  and  life  among 
all  classes,  with  many  valedictious,  and  more  benedictions, 
from  millions  of  grateful  citizens  ;  and  its  occurrence,  in  our 
conversation,  was  one  of  the  incidental  causes  that  induced 
its  religious  character,  as  will  appear  in  the  sequel.  We 
proceed. 

1.  It  is  a  pleasant  incident  to  me,  Mr.  Adams,  that  I  may 
be  somewhat  filled  tvith  your  company  on  this  occasion.  I 
was  as  totally  unaware  of  it,  before  I  saw  you  here,  as  sub- 
sequently gratified  to  realize  the  fact.  You  are  on  a  filial 
visit,  I  hear,  to  your  honored  predecessor  and  father. 

2.  Yes.  My  occupations  are  so  numerous  that  I  have  been 
already  detained  too  long  from  this  duty.  But  now,  having 
given  the  valedictory  to  La  Fayette,  and  adjusted  other  mat- 
ters, I  hasten  to  see  the  old  gentleman  in  his  advanced  age 
and  infirmities. 

1.  He  will  be  happy,  I  am  sure,  to  receive  you  ;  and  your 
visit  will,  I  trust,  be  a  source  of  mutual  pleasure  and  of  grate- 
ful memory,  especially  as  his  continuance  with  us  can  not, 
probably,  be  much  further  protracted.  He  will  be  glad  to  hear 
from  yourself  a  description  of  the  departure  of  La  Fayette. 
*  Now  TiuRTY-oNE,  and  vast  territories  soon  to  evolve  more  states. 


THE    DESERTER    CHAPLAIN.  221 

2.  Some  things,  on  that  theme,  I  ought  rather  to  tell  you 
than  him,  probably  ;  especially  one  that  concerns  the  clergy, 
though  not  as  honorably  as  we  all  could  desire. 

1.  Let  me  hear  it,  if"  you  please. 

2.  It  respects  the  chaplain  of  the  Brandywine.  We  tried 
to  have  every  thing  comnie  ilfaut  for  the  comfort  of  the  ven- 
erable marquis  ;  and  hence  we  provided  him,  we  thought, 
with  a  first-rate  chaplain  ;  one  whose  paper  character,  at 
least,  was  fair  and  promising.  We  thought  he  would  prove 
a  pleasant  companion  for  him.  But  you  heard,  perhaps,  of 
the  trick  he  served  us. 

1.  He  changed  his  mind,  I  think. 

2.  He  was  a  deserter  and  a  coward.  He  accepted  the  ap- 
pointment, after  trying  to  get  it ;  got  his  outfit,  went  on 
board ;  all  seemed  right,  when,  all  at  orice,  as  the  pilot  was 
leaving,  his  luggage  was  reproduced,  and  nothing  would  do 
but  return  he  must,  and  did  ;  though  the  ship  was  under 
weigh,  and  all  hands  urged  him.  to  remain.  This  was  not 
the  thing  at  all.  This  was  all  the  reason  why  our  national 
vessel,  with  such  honored  freight,  went  and  returned  with  no 
chaplain,  no  prayers — and  what  think  you  and  yours  of  it  ? 

1.  It  strikes  me  very  strangely.  I  knew  that  eccentric 
person  some  years  ago.  He  was  a  Baptist  preacher ;  though, 
after  several  flaming  publications  in  favor  of  immersion  and 
close  communion,  which  he  soon  renounced,  he  left  them, 
joined  some  Western  presbytery,  and  has  belonged,  I  think, 
to  several  denominations  in  the  course  of  his  life.  His  rea- 
sons, or  his  impulses,  in  that  matter,  I  know  not ;  only  I  great- 
ly regret  that  a  minister  of  religion  should  seem  to  be  the 
theme  of  so  just  and  so  high  a  censure.  La  Fayette  had  a 
great  esteem,  and  with  good  reason,  for  Witherspoon,  Rogers, 
M'Whorter,  Dufiield,  Miller,  Wilson,  and  many  others  of  our 
Presbyterian  clergy  ;  and  I  am  quite  sorry  he  should  not 
have  had  one  of  their  sort  to  benefit  and  to  bless  him  when 
homeward  bound.    It  was  a  service  and  an  opportunity  which 


222  RELIGIOUS    CONVERSATION. 

any  one  of  those  patriots,  sages,  and  men  of  God  might  have 
embraced  with  delight  and  immutability.  But  poor  human 
nature  is  not  as  it  once  was  ;  though,  through  the  reign  of 
grace,  it  may  be  restored  to  a  grander  moral  eminence  than 
that  whence  we  fell  in  Adam  ;  the  paradise  of  the  second 
Adam,  never  to  be  forfeited  by  those  who  are  so  happy  as  to 
arrive  there. 

2.  You  orthodox  clergy  think  most  unmercifully  ill  of  hu- 
man nature.  I  have  sometimes  heard  sermons  about  our 
wickedness  that  really  made  me  smile.  I  wonder  that  a 
preacher,  after  such  a  discourse,  should  descend  from  the  pul- 
pit and  take  one  of  us  by  the  hand  ;  but  perhaps  he  scarce 
believes  it  himself,  and  was  only  performing  a  technical  rou- 
tine that  had  no  connection  with  practical  wisdom  or  com- 
mon sense.     I  think  better  of  human  nature. 

1.  What  a  man  thinks  of  human  nature,  Mr.  Adams,  is  a 
criterion  of  character  often  of  most  ominous  demonstrations. 
There  is  some  paradox,  some  deceit,  and  some  instruction 
often,  and  a  strange  compound  in  such  an  estimate. 

2.  Yours  is  too  extravagant,  too  uncompromising,  too  se- 
vere, too  indiscriminate. 

1.  Mr.  Adams,  I  am  surprised,  and  glad  too,  to  see  the 
course  our  converse  is  taking.  The  subject  of  religion  is  with 
me  comparatively  the  only  one.  All  else  seems  dust  on  the 
scale,  or  at  best  as  the  diaff  of  the  mountains  before  the 
vdnd,  and  like  a  rolling  thing,  a  thistle  down,  hefwe  the 
tvhirlivind.  To  converse  on  such  a  theme  with  you,  I  value 
as  at  once  a  pleasure,  and  an  honor,  and  a  responsibility. 
Well  I  know  that  you  may  not  be  a  Christian,  even  if  in  all 
other  qualities  you  excel.  There  is  no  ex  officio  salvation 
for  me  or  for  you.  Hence  I  shall  be  very  happy  to  prolong 
this  colloquy,  only  I  must  be  at  once  respectful  and  honest. 
Please  observe,  too,  that  j'ou  shall  adjourn  it  whenever  you 
please,  and  afterward  resume  it,  or  not,  as  you  please. 

2.  Proceed,  then.     We  can  occupy  the  time  comparative- 


MR.   ADAMs'   INAUGURAL.  223 

ly  well  in  this  way.     I  shall  state  my  objections  with  equal 
frankness,  as  I  know  no  reason  for  concealment. 

1 .  Agreed,  sir.  Your  secular  cares  and  duties  seldom  al- 
low a  hiatus  for  such  themes  ;  and  I  pray  God  to  make  this 
opportunity  one  of  mutual  profit  and  pleasure.  Yet,  as  the 
head  of  a  great  Christian  nation,  how  congruous,  how  prop- 
er, how  desirable,  that  you  should  be  a  Christian  !  All  this 
pertains  not  merely  to  theory,  to  theology,  or  theosophy,  as  it 
were  a  mere  science.  Truth  is  in  order  to  goodness  ;  and 
if  we  can  see  what  the  truth  is,  we  must  obey  it  or  perish. 

2.  That  sounds  hke  some  of  your  Calvinism. 

1.  More,  Mr.  Adams,  like  the  Christianism  of  the  Bible. 
You  ought  to  know  how  all  the  truly  pious  in  the  country  are 
praying  for  you,  and  how  much  they  desire  that  our  great 
men  should  be  good  men,  especially  the  presidents  of  this 
great  and  noble  nation.  Greatness  without  goodness  will  cut 
a  sorry  figure  at  the  left  hand  of  Christ  in  that  day  I  It  is 
the  goodness,  rather  than  the  greatness  of  God,  that  consti- 
tutes his  glory,  the  love  of  his  people,  the  praise  of  his  wor- 
shipers, and  the  wealth  of  heaven.  It  makes  the  sin  of  his 
enemies  so  enhanced,  and  so  inexcusable,  too,  that  they  hate 
and  dishonor  the  veiy  goodness  of  such  a  God. 

2.  Yes,  God  is  good,  and  over  all. 

1.  In  reading  your  inaugural  last  Mai'ch,  I  was  pleased 
with  all  the  piety  and  all  the  scripture  I  found  in  it.  But 
they  were  rare  instances.  The  public  would  tolerate  con- 
siderably more.  Look  at  the  public  documents  of  Washing- 
ton. He  was  honorably  distinguished  for  that  reverent  rec- 
ognition of  God  Almighty,  in  all,  and  over  all,  which  ought 
to  be  the  ordinary  way  and  character  of  all  our  statesmen. 
His  example  ought  to  be  normal  and  permanent  in  this  as 
well  as  in  other  relations  of  his  sublime  philosophy.  In  all 
thy  tvaijs  acknowledge  HIM,  and  HE  shall  direct  thy 
paths.  In  that  inaugural,  you  made  a  beautiful  quotation 
from  Daniel,  I  remember,  which  was  surely  fit  and  admira- 


224  EXTRAVAGANCE  OF  I'KEACHEKS. 

ble — importing  your  sense  of  dependence  on  One  invisible, 
who  has  yourself,  and  your  administration  too,  in  His  power  ; 
in  whoic  hand  your  breath  is,  and  icliose  arc  all  your  icays  ; 
but  you  might  have  quoted  the  next  clause  with  no  improprie- 
ty ;  and  whom  you  have  not  glorified,  to  perfect  the  sentence. 
2.  More  of  your  Calvinism,  it  seems. 

1.  No  ;  only  some  of  Daniel's. 

2.  I  attended  the  Presbyterian  Church  while  preparing 
my  address  ;  and  that  text  was  taken  by  the  preacher,  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Post,*  and  so  I  used  it.  I  was  impressed  with  the 
sentiment  as  he  handled  it  ;  and  hence  it  seemed  pertinent 
to  my  case,  entering  on  so  great  and  so  arduous  a  service. 

1 .  I  am  very  glad  you  did,  dear  sir.  You  are  dependent  on 
God  to  an  extent  greater,  grander,  sublimer,  than  man  or  an- 
gel can  comprehend.  But  we  can  all  apprehend  the  fact,  and 
own  it,  to  his  glory  and  our  own  good — and  to  our  own  wis- 
dom as  well. 

2.  Well,  on  the  topic  of  sin  we  have  not  concluded. 

1 .  No  ;  you  allege  our  extravagance,  and  I  am  sorry  you 
do. 

2.  Yes  ;  you  are  quite  beyond  all  sober  reason,  I  judge. 

1.  I  well  remember  when  Paul  judged  very  similarly,  as  he 
says.     It  was  before  he  had  any  genuine  piety,  Mr.  Adams. 

2.  Your  views  at  large  I  have  often  considered,  on  this 
topic,  as  a  rare  phenomenon.  It  used  to  perplex  me — lately 
I  seem  to  have  solved  it  —  I  mean  the  theory  you  clergy  in 
common  hold. 

1.  Let  us  hear. 

2.  I  resolve  it  all  into  a  latent  vanity  of  your  minds. 

1.  An  odd  theory,  and  quite  original,  I  dare  say  ;  all  your 
own. 

2.  Oh  !  you  are  honest,  and  mean  no  harm  by  it,  at  all 
events. 

1 .  How  came  we  by  it,  since  by  nature  we  commonly  in- 
*  Now  of  Charleston,  South  Carolina. 


THEIR    VANITY    AND    THEIR    PRINCIPLES.  225 

clinc  to  it  not  at  all.     We  are  all  by  nature  children  of 
tvrath,  even  as  others.     We  too  are  men. 

2.  How  the  vanity  vv^orks  it  might  not  be  possible  always 
to  show. 

1 .  We  have  learned  our  doctrine  from  the  page  of  inspira- 
tion, studying  it  in  its  pure  originals,  with  patience,  prayer, 
and  critical  helps.  We  know,  and  feel,  and  prove  what  we 
hold,  and  what  we  teach,  on  that  and  other  topics.  You  know 
the  rule,  cuique  credendum  est  sua  in  arte*  Is  it  not  prob- 
able the  clergy  know,  in  their  own  profession  that  absorbs 
their  life,  more  and  better  than  men  of  merely  secular  pur- 
suits ?  But  try  them  by  the  scriptures,  like  the  noble  Be- 
reans  of  old,  and  let  them  stand  or  fall  there. 

2.  They  adhere  professionally  and  technically  to  their  way, 
I  think. 

1 .  Well ;  your  way,  Mr.  Adams,  about  their  vanity,  as  the 
reason  of  their  views  of  sin  and  human  depravity,  you  have 
not  yet  expounded. 

2.  I  will  attempt  it,  then — they  think  so  much  of  them- 
selves, that  their  importance  seems  to  expand  with  a  halo  of 
greatness,  as  if  they  were  the  peers  and  comrades  of  God. 
Hence  they  are  His  enemies,  they  are  at  war  with  Him,  their 
sin  is  an  infinite  evil  to  HIM,  it  requires  a  great  motion  in 
heaven  and  earth  to  get  it  pardoned  ;  and  in  all  this  they  are 
self-magnified  at  an  extravagant  rate,  beyond  all  probable 
or  reasonable  limits  of  their  being. 

1.  Go  on,  sir,  and  show  how  should  they  think,  so  as  to 
be  sober. 

2.  Think  ?  They  should  learn  their  littleness,  and  be  hum- 
ble. A  man  is  a  mite,  an  insect,  an  infinitesimal  of  exist- 
ence. He  is  an  atom  of  an  atom  world.  Our  world  is  an 
atom  compared  with  the  solar  system.  This  a  few  particles 
of  dust,  measured  with  the  fixed  stars,  the  sidereal  universe 
— with  its  millions  of  firmaments,  its  nebular  glories,   its 

*  Every  one  is  to  be  credited  in  his  own  art  or  profession. 
K2 


226  HIS    ARGUMENT    VAIN    AND    FALSE. 

manifold  constellations  :  and  all  those  and  all  creation,  noth- 
ing— to  God  I  "What  then  is  man,  individual  man,  to  HIM  ? 
What  all  his  works  but  the  shadow  of  his  substance  ?  And 
man  lives  here  but  one  moment,  compared  with  eternity. 
Can  he  then  be  so  much,  and  do  so  much,  to  annoy  God  him- 
self, to  convulse  the  universe,  and  attract  to  his  little  person 
such  an  infinitude  of  wrath  !  I  say,  they  should  study  their 
own  insignificance,  and  then  they  would  not  magnify  them- 
selves so  much — they  will  be  magnificent  even  in  depravity, 
or  in  the  sentiment  of  it. 

1.  Now  I  seem  to  understand  you. 

2.  Well,  and  what  say  you  to  my  argument  ? 

1 .  I  first  say,  thanks,  Mr.  Adams,  for  giving  it  such  a  cer- 
tain and  tangible  shape.  That  mode  of  argument,  called  re- 
ductio  ad  absurdum,  comes  into  my  mind  in  an  opportune 
moment.  Suppose  you  correct — then  these  are  logically  the 
consequences  : 

(1)  The  clergy  are  all  refuted,  and  ought  to  be  corrected 
too,  fundamentally. 

(2)  Christ,  and  his  apostles  and  prophets,  are  exactly  in 
the  same  predicament — they  are  all  wrong,  as  shown  by  the 
solar  system  and  the  sidereal  universe. 

(3)  Materialism  is  the  great  criterion  of  ethics,  theologies, 
and  metaphysics  ;  for  example,  because  I  can  not  stamp  with 
my  foot  on  the  deck  of  this  steamer  so  as  to  stagger  her  mo- 
tions, or  break  her  machinery,  or  injure  her  hulk,  I  can  not 
sin  against  the  captain  or  the  owners,  even  by  hating  them 
in  my  heart,  and  by  plotting  their  murder,  intending  to  exe- 
cute it  as  soon  as  opportunity  offers.  Because  I  can  not  strike 
this  little  globe  so  as  to  arrest  its  flight  in  space,  or  damage 
the  solar  system,  or  shake  the  throne  of  God,  it  is  impossible 
to  hate  him  at  all ;  or  to  sin,  if  I  do  hate  him  ;  or  to  break 
his  commandments  and  deserve  punishment  for  it  I  Your 
theory  is  nothing  new.  It  is  materialism,  bald  and  bad,  and 
nothing  better  I     It  illustrates  by  contrast  the  glories  of  spir- 


MATERIALISM    AND    SPIRITUALITY.  227 

ituality — the  only  rif^ht  philosophy.  Spirituality  is  the  doc- 
trine of  reason,  truth,  experience,  conscience,  wisdom,  and 
scripture.  Now  I  begin  to  understand  how  so  wise  a  philos- 
opher can  get  along  in  life,  without  any  annoyance  from  the 
idea  of  sin,  any  need  of  mercy,  or  pardon,  or  atonement,  or 
salvation  ;  and  hoAV  sin  appears  to  him  a  demonstrated  ni- 
hility, nay,  a  certain  impossibility,  for  such  a  point  of  space 
and  time  as  man  to  perpetrate  against  the  infinite  circum- 
ference of  universal  being  !     Oh  I  Mr.  Adams. 

2.   I  supposed  you  would  not  relish  my  argument. 

1 .  What  logic  is  that,  sir,  that  refutes  God  ?  that  renders 
his  sayings  obsolete,  as  so  many  antiquated  nullities  ?  that 
makes  faith  substantially  at  one  with  infidelity  ?  As  for  your 
argument,  my  dear  sir,  I  am  very  glad  you  have  produced  it ; 
I  know  now  what  it  is  I 

2.  You  like  not  my  kind  of  humility,  either  ? 

1.  Certainly  not.  I  know  it  to  be  pride  only,  under  cover 
of  a  pseudo-philosophy  and  the  solar  system.  Think  you  that 
conscience  means  nothing  ?  or  is  it  a  fibrous  organ,  or  a  mus- 
cular machine,  or  a  disease,  like  the  toothache,  within  us  ? 
Murder  consists  not  in  killing,  but  in  hating.  This  the  an- 
cient heathen  even,  especially  Cicero,  knew  and  aflfirmed. 
Whosoever  hateth  his  brother  is  a  murderer  ;  and  ye  knoxo 
that  no  murderer  liath  eternal  life  abiding  in  him,.  So 
says  the  Holy  Ghost,  by  his  beloved  Apostle  John.  This  is 
spirituality  ;  it  is  not  materialism. 

2.  What,  then,  would  you  make  of  us  ? 

1.  Exactly  what  we  all  are,  by  nature  and  by  practice, 
till  grace  makes  us  somewhat  as  we  ought  to  be ;  exactly, 
dear  sir,  what  the  Holy  Scriptures  fully  and  truly  assert  that 
we  all  are. 

2.  You  do  not  agree  with  me,  then  ? 

1.  No,  indeed.  You  see  what  a  sin  was  the  first  in  Eden. 
Its  consequences  ai'e  all  about  us,  and  in  us,  and  over  us,  for- 
ever.    But,  according  to  materialism,  it  was  all  nothing. 


228  HUMAN    NATURE,  SELf's    VIEW. 

Was  the  apple — if  that  it  were — evil  ?  No.  The  tree  ?  No. 
The  admiratiou  of  it  as  fair  and  beautiful  ?  No.  The  eating 
of  it,  sinii)ly  considered  ?  Not  at  all.  Where,  then,  was  the 
sin  ?  Answer — In  putting  God  at  defiance  ;  in  making  noth- 
ing of  his  order  ;  in  practically  annihilating  God  himself ;  iii 
crediting  the  doctrine  of  the  father  of  Universalists  in  con- 
tradiction of  God  ;  and  in  setting  an  example,  to  follow  which 
would  ruin  heaven  and  confound  the  universe.  The  tree  of 
the  knoioledge  of  good  and  evil,  which  they  violated,  is  so 
called,  demonstrably  and  simply,  because  it  was  ordained  of 
God  as  the  criterion,  the  test,  the  signal  of  their  fidelity  or 
of  their  sin.  If  they  ate  not  of  it,  it  stood  the  lovely  monu- 
ment of  their  innocence  ;  if  they  ate  of  it,  its  wound  con- 
demned them,  it  bled  their  accusation,  it  wept  their  death  I 

On  the  other  system,  it  was  all  trivial  and  innoxious,  as 
the  autumnal  tlight  of  the  gossamer.  If  Adam  and  Eve  had 
torn  up  all  the  trees  in  the  garden,  had  burned  them,  and 
turned  the  floods  of  water  in  desolation  over  Paradise,  that 
might  have  been  an  atom  of  an  atom  of  something  ;  but  as 
it  was,  it  was  all  the  play  of  children,  and  original  sin  is  all 
and  only  the  day-dream  of  Calvinists. 

2.  You  are  coming  hard  on  poor  human  nature  again. 

1.  Better  it  were,  Mr.  Adams,  to  see  how  hard  God  comes 
on  it.  His  truth  is  infallible  and  eternal,  and  it  is  revealed 
for  our  instruction. 

2.  I  never  could  consent  to  such  a  manifesto  as  you  give. 
1.  Human  nature,  dear  sir,  is  often  good  or  bad  in  our 

eyes,  inversely,  as  we  are  bad  or  good  in  the  eyes  of  God. 
This  is  what  I  mean  by  our  estimate  of  human  nature  being 
a  criterion  of  our  character,  as  regenerated  or  yet  in  the  state 
of  nature  ;  thus,  an  unregenerate  man,  latently,  if  not  con- 
fessedly, thinks  morally  well  of  himself,  is  proud  and  self- 
righteous,  and  all  his  tendencies  in  this  relation  are  blindly 
to  self-justification,  to  apologies  for  his  peccancies,  and  to 
show,  ill  substance,  that,  if  only  justice  were  done  him,  in- 


THE    WRATH    TO    COME.  229 

Blead  of  oppression  ami  injury,  he  should  do  well  and  pros- 
per, both  here  and  hereafter.  He  thinks  well  of  human  na- 
ture in  the  abstract,  because  it  means  himself  in  the  con- 
crete. On  the  other  hand,  for  a  similar  reason,  the  Christian 
thinks  ill  of  human  nature,  especially  because  he  receives 
the  testimony  of  God  concerning  it  with  humiliation  and  per- 
sonal application.  Hence  he  is  humble,  grateful,  teachable. 
He  trusts  God  with  gladness,  in  sight,  out  of  sight,  in  dark- 
ness, in  light,  in  trial  and  distress,  at  all  times,  and  for  all 
things.  His  confidence,  in  God,  through  the  medium  of  his 
truth,  is  at  once  enlightened  and  joyous.  It  makes  him  hap- 
py, holy,  safe ;  in  life,  in  death,  and  forever ;  through  the 
power  and  constancy  of  the  covenant-keeping  God,  by  the  aid 
of  his  Spirit  and  the  eternal  mediation  of  his  Son.  And  in 
this  temper  his  heai-t  dilates  in  pure  philanthropy,  unfeigned, 
toward  others.  His  sense  of  the  truth  impels  him  to  seek 
your  happiness,  to  love  your  soul,  and  to  desire  intensely  that 
you  may  participate  the  blessedness  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus. 
No  other  man  is  happy — no  other  can  be  happy.  When 
pleased  and  joyous,  without  religion,  it  is  only  the  harbinger 
of  the  wrath  to  come  I 

2.  What  mean  you  by  wrath  ? 

1.  The  expression  is  not  mine,  dear  sir.  It  is  fxeAAovaa 
opyr),  future  wrath  ;  and  as  Whitfield  says,  it  is  future  now, 
but  it  will  be  both  present  and  future  forever  to  them  that 
die  in  their  sins. 

2.  Do  you  really  believe  that  ? 

1.  Indeed  I  do.  God  says  it,  and  I  believe  it.  Its  appli- 
cation, as  a  doctrine,  to  individuals,  to  final  aggregates  and 
comparative  numbers,  is  another  thing,  Avhich  will  be  well 
adjusted  by  vmerring  wisdom  and  immutable  truth.  God  is 
the  arbiter  of  all  hope,  the  dispenser  of  final  destiny.  Do 
you  not  believe  it,  Mr.  Adams  ? 

2.  What,  in  eternal  punishment  ? 
1.  Yes. 


230  THE    SCRIPTURE    VERY    PLAIN. 

2.  Not  I,  indeed. 

1.  But  you  are  afraid,  now  and  then,  that  it  may  be  true? 

2.  I  can  never  believe  that. 

1 .  Yes  you  can,  my  dear  sir ;  and  what  is  more,  you  will 
believe  it  forever. 

2,  Never. 

1 .  Do  you  then  deny  revelation,  or  are  you  willing  to  con- 
tradict God  to  his  face  ? 

2.  Oh  I  I  interpret  those  expressions  in  a  different  way. 
1.  Interpretation,  sir,  you  know,  is  a  science.     It  has  its 

definitions,  its  functions,  its  rules,  and  its  tests.  Without 
these,  what  is  the  science  of  law  ?  How,  in  Westminster 
Hall,  do  judges,  erudite  and  honored,  interpret  the  statutes 
of  the  realm?  or  in  our  own  American  judiciary  at  Wash- 
ington, Boston,  Albany,  Philadelphia,  New  York,  or  else- 
where ?  The  object  of  the  science  is  in  a  reasonable  way 
to  ascertain,  and  evoke,  and  vindicate  the  native  sense  of  the 
document — no  matter  what.  The  laws  of  interpretation, 
as  laid  down  by  Blackstone,  are  substantively  all  we  want 
in  the  science  of  theology.  Let  us  concede  that  the  scrip- 
tures every  where  mean  something  ;  let  us  go  to  the  inspired 
originals  ;  let  us  be  grammatical  and  hermeneutical  in  our 
analysis  of  the  passage,  the  last  part  of  the  twenty-fifth  of 
Matthew,  for  example  ;  see  there  the  millions  of  the  whole 
completed  species  standing  promiscuously  before  the  Son  of 
Man — see  him  separate  the?n  one  from  another,  as  a  shep- 
herd divideth  his  sheep  from  the  goats — see  him  place  them 
in  two  classes,  one  at  his  right,  the  other  at  his  left  hand, 
then  read  the  final  award,  first  to  the  one,  then  to  the  other  ; 
observe  the  principle  of  contrast,  of  antithesis,  of  contrariety, 
in  the  character  of  the  one  class  compared  with  that  of  the 
other  in  their  sentence,  in  their  final  state  ;  and  remember 
that  principle  of  contrast  pervades  the  whole  Bible,  and  all 
the  sayings  and  doings  of  God  to  man  from  the  beginning, 
when  he  declared  to  our  apostate  first  parents  the  war  of 


INFIDELITY    ALONE    STUMBLES    AT    IT.  231 

two  parties,  their  reciprocal  enmity,  and  the  final  preva- 
lence of  the  seed  of  tJie  ivomati  bruising  the  head  of  the 
serpent.      Christ  shall  eternally  conquer. 

2.  I  think  God  is  too  good  to  punish  men  forever. 

1.  I  think  him  infinitely  too  good  to  lie.  Did  he  reveal 
the  future  lorath  simply  to  scare  us,  not  believing  it  him- 
self? There  is  nothing  else  in  creation  so  strong  as  the 
word  of  God.  It  made  creation  ;  it  upholds  it ;  and  heaven 
and  earth  shall  vanish,  but  not  a  particle  of  his  truth,  Mr. 
Adams. 

2.  Still  I  do  not  believe  your  version  of  it. 

1.  What  is  your  version,  my  dear  sir? 

2.  Any  thing  but  yours. 

1.  How  to  get  away  from  the  plain  sense  of  scripture  on 
this  awful  article  of  our  ikith,  not  here  only,  but  throughout 
the  whole  volume  of  revelation,  I  confess  cordially  that  I  do 
not  know  at  all.  I  have  read  the  most  plausible  and  ingen- 
ious works  of  Universalists,  Restorationists,  and  purgatory- 
mongers  and  their  theories,  only  with  the  edified  conviction 
that  selfishness,  and  deceit,  and  impiety,  or  presumptuous  ig- 
norance, made  them  all.  From  the  times  and  the  reveries 
of  Origen,  in  the  third  century,  to  the  impudent  day-dreamers 
of  our  own  times,  I  have  never  seen  any  thing  of  the  sort 
that  could  bear  investigation,  or  live  in  the  light  of  revela- 
tion.    They  are  all  lies,  sir. 

2.  Nothing  could  ever  make  me  believe  in  your  version 
of  it. 

1.  Possibly  you  may  believe  it  yet.  You  are  not  wholly 
your  own  keeper. 

2.  No  ;  impossible. 

1.  A  learned  minister  of  the  "liberal"  school,  but  a  pol- 
ished and  courteous  gentleman, /acZws  ad  unguem,  once  told 
me  that  he  never  would  believe  it  ;  that  he  would  believe 
rather  that  there  was  no  God. 

2.  And  what  said  you  in  reply  ? 


232  NO    ONE    CAN    BEAR    THE    WRATH    OF    GOD. 

1.  I  told  him  that  reading  the  Bible  then,  intelligently  and 
honestly,  would  soon  make  him  an  atheist.  He  said  he 
would  prefer  to  be  an  atheist,  seriously  I  I  replied,  very  pos- 
sibly ;  and,  after  all,  I  only  believe  more  the  testimony  of 
God.  According  to  your  position,  sir,  the  doctrine  of  eternal 
punishment  is,  j^cr  se,  incredible  and  impossible — no  language 
could  reveal  it ;  and  were  it  revealed  in  Greek  or  Hebrew, 
or  both,  that  fact  would  condemn  as  spurious  the  assumed  in- 
spiration of  the  document.     This  is  a  beautiful  position. 

2.  Well,  I  take  it. 

1.  I  rather  question  it,  Mr.  Adams.  I  take  the  affirmative 
or  the  positive  with  evidence — you  the  negative  without  ev- 
idence, and  in  spite  of  it.  My  faith  is  a  posteriori,  is  baco- 
nian  and  inductive ;  yours  is  a  2^'iori,  antibaconian  and  anti- 
nomian.  I  am  sure  that  your  negative  conviction  is  far  in- 
ferior to  my  affirmative. 

2.  Mine  is  such  that  nothing  will  ever  touch  it,  certainly. 

1.  God  has  two  methods,  one  of  evidence,  and  piety  re- 
sponds to  it ;  the  other  of  experience,  and  his  enemies  suffer 
it.  I  pray  God  that  in  the  former,  not  the  latter  way,  you 
may  know  and  own  it  to  his  glory. 

2.  Well,  if  worst  comes,  so  be  it.     I  must  bear  it. 

1.  Say  not  so,  my  dear  sir;  you  can  not  bear  it!  Let 
Christ  tell  you,  in  his  owti  words,  about  the  agonies  of  final 
despair.  In  hell  no  lost  spirit,  human  or  demon,  ever  thinks 
of  such  a  thing.  The  reality  is  given  us  by  Christ,  in  Luke, 
16  :  19-31.  The  sufferer  says  not  that  he  can  bear  it,  but 
begs  a  drop  of  water  to  cool  my  tongiie,  for  I  am  tormented 
in  this  flame.  On  earth  he  was  a  gentleman  of  ease  and 
opulence,  and  probably  thought  that  he  could  never  believe 
the  doctrine  of  the  future  wrath. 

2.  AVhy  is  it,  think  you,  that  they  are  so  punished  ?  What 
end  is  to  be  gained  by  it  ?  Does  God  delight  in  the  miseries 
of  his  creatures  ? 

1.  Not  at  all.     Lifinitely  the  reverse.     He  no  more  loves 


MR.   ADAMS    IN    HIS    FINE    MANNERS.  233 

misery  than  he  loves  sin  —  the  sin  that  makes  the  misery. 
But  you  seem  to  make  nothing  of  either  the  one  or  the  other. 
In  all  our  conversation,  Mr.  Adams,  I  have  observed  that, 
from  all  you  have  said,  I  could  not  infer  that  you  are  a  sinner 
in  your  own  eyes  at  all,  or  that  you  need  mercy,  or  that  a 
Savior  to  you  would  not  be  a  perfect  superfluity.  Surely, 
there  is  no  hell  if  there  be  no  sin  ;  but  then  there  is  no  heaven 
cither,  if  that  be  the  home  of  redeemed  sinners.  Hence 
grace  is  vacated  in  the  same  way,  and  becomes  as  grand  a 
nullity  as  wrath.  And  what  is  the  Christianity  you  have 
thus  denuded  of  its  honors  and  left  to  our  despair  ? 


In  these  conversations,  I  was  aware  of  the  danger  of  weary- 
ing the  president  by  too  great  and  continuous  a  prolongation. 
Hence  I  favored  an  occasional  pause,  changing  the  subject, 
retiring  now  and  then  for  a  few  minutes,  observing  some  in- 
cidental scene,  and  at  length,  when  called  to  supper,  waving 
the  subject  till  a  future  opportunity.  At  the  table,  and  at 
each  meal,  the  most  decorous  order  was  observed  ;  the  pres- 
ence of  the  president  was  urbanely  respected  ;  the  captain 
presided  with  ease  and  propriety  ;  the  table  was  well  pre- 
pared and  served  ;  and  the  epularj'  operations  were  preceded 
by  the  action  of  thanks  to  the  Giver,  in  which  all  seemed  to 
participate.  I  officiated,  at  the  request  af  the  captain.  The 
manners  of  Mr.  Adams  were  bland  and  simple.  It  was  beau- 
tiful to  see  the  chief  magistrate  of  this  great  nation,  attend- 
ed merely  by  a  French  valet,  in  the  dress  of  a  common  citi- 
zen, with  no  outward  pomp,  nor  a  particle  of  artistic  ostenta- 
tion ;  and  on  these  very  accounts  honored  more  by  the  people, 
as  a  private  traveler,  passing  through  the  difi'erent  states  of 
our  common  country  ;  recognized  in  office  wherever  he  went, 
and  yet  in  such  a  social,  proper,  philosophical  style  and  man- 
ner, as  befits  the  highest  civilization,  and  bespeaks  a  country 
which  science  and  the  arts,  but,  above  all,  the  Bible  and  its 
influences,  and  the  universal  education  of  the  masses,  have, 


234  A    VENTURE    IN    RHYME. 

under  God,  made  -what  it  is,  and  can,  under  God,  have  the 
appropriate  mission  to  perpetuate. 

"And  oh  !  may  heaven  our  simpler  lives  prevent 

From  luxury's  contagion,  weak  and  vile  ; 
Then,  howe'er  crowns  or  coronets  are  rent," 
Or  Europe's  stonns  convulse  her  continent, 

The  millions  there  God's  temples  that  defile 
Unburied  fall ;  the  man  of  sin  is  gone, 
And  desolation's  volume  spreads  alone 
Wliere  tjTanny  in  spasms  resigns  her  throne  ; 
Their  balls  of  empire  rolling  still — or  spent — 
Spasmodic  throes  and  deep  volcanoes  pent, 
With  many  a  presage  of  destruction  sent. 

And  many  a  fear  of  plot  and  prosperous  guile ; 
The  ancient  power  and  rule  of  iron  departing. 
And  rights  and  duties  their  deserts  asserting. 

Portents  and  prodigies,  as  rank  and  file. 

Invading  every  city,  province,  isle  ; 
Indignant  commons  with  their  monarchs  sporting, 
To  wild  confusion  all  their  states  reverting. 

Factitious  glory  burnt  on  its  own  pile ; 
Turk,  Papist,  Jew,  and  Infidel  surrounded 
By  retributions  floods,  rebuked,  confounded  ; 
Blood  must  they  drink  who  martyr  blood  have  shed ;  - 
Judgments  divine  and  truthful  there  are  sped, 

Where  old  corruptions  all  the  scene  embroil ; 
But  prophecy  must  wholly  be  fulfilled 
In  all,  as  writ,  the  killing  and  the  killed : 

And  Europe's  vanity  may  cease  to  smile  ; 
Her  own  must  flow  for  blood  that  she  has  spilled  ; 
As  oracles  declare,  as  God  in  heaven  has  will'd ; 
So  persecution,  tyranny,  and  v.'rong, 
Crushing  the  weak,  and  flattering  the  strong. 
Must  meet  their  day  and  doom  of  retribution : 
Earthquakes  of  terror,  wrath,  and  revolution. 

Shall  rock  their  continent — in  mill-stone  style 
Old  Italy's  peninsula  shall  fall. 
And  guilty  Rome  he  found  no  more  at  all! 
Czar,  Sultan,  Pope,  King,  Bishop,  Emperor, 
Shall  be  extinguished,  to  exist  no  more ! 


SOME    APOLOGY    FOR    ITS    DRIFT.  235 

Usurpers  and  their  trains,  in  church  and  state, 
Vanquished  and  vanished,  neither  good  nor  great ! 
Such  arc  the  changes  destined  there  to  come 
Before  can  be  Christ's  own  millennium  : 

Queen  of  the  world,  America  the  while 
Shall  grow  and  flourish  with  serene  content ; 
Our  fathers'  God  her  shield  and  battlement ; 
Her  wisdom  shining  in  each  noble  deed  : 
Her  motto,  Truth  ;  the  Bible  still  her  creed ; 
Her  virtuous  millions,  rising,  shall  be  found 
Peaceful,  united,  happy  ;  while  around 
They  stand  a  wall  of  fire  on  freedom's  sacred  ground. 

If  explanation  or  apology  were  in  place  for  the  above  ex- 
cursive license,  I  would  beg  the  reader  to  believe  that  the 
perpetration  of  numbers  was  not  here  deliberated  ;  nor  is  it 
charged,  in  fact,  with  some  portentous  complot,  or  personal 
conatus  of  malignity,  or  fanatical  dismay,  against  the  pros- 
pects or  the  prosperity  of  European  states — the  ten  horns  of 
the  beast.  The  poesy  of  it  is  surely  poor  enough  ;  but  as  for 
the  sentiment,  it  may  be  just  as  true  as  it  is  terrible,  and 
just  as  true,  also,  as  the  spirit  of  projjhecy  in  Daniel,  Paul, 
and  John.  See  also  Mat.  15  :  13.  The  organized  Christian- 
ity of  Europe  is,  in  the  main,  an  abhorrence  to  the  living  God. 
It  is  perverted,  paganized,  metamorphosed,  and  stiffened  with 
the  blood  of  the  martyrs  of  Jesus.  It  is  a  huge  target  to  the 
bolts  of  heaven.  Its  epitaph  is  written  at  large  in  the  apoc- 
alyptic visions  ;  and  not  the  houses  of  Braganza  and  Haps- 
burgh ;  nor  the  Bourbons  and  the  Bonapartes ;  and  the  Guelphs 
— Busici ;  nor  Russ,  or  Moslem,  or  Man  of  Sin,  or  Jew  ;  nor 
Holy  Alliance  ;  nor  all  their  pie-crust  citadels,  and  fortrtress, 
and  castles,  and  palaces  of  glory  ;  nor  all  the  infidehty,  and 
error,  and  dotage,  and  scorn  of  true  religion  that  abound  there, 
will  ever  prevail  to  arrest  the  executive  arm  of  omnipotence 
in  making  good  the  veracity  of  God  in  their  realized  catas- 
trophe. No  !  Nor  shall  self-righteous  and  arrogant  old  En- 
gland, or  the  British  Islands,  escape.  There  is  salt,  indeed, 
some  of  it,  even  in  Sodom,  even  in  Great  Britain. 


236  THE    KIPK    WICKEDNESS    OF    EUROPE. 

And  thou  hast  many  righteous  !     Well  for  thee — 
That  salt  preserves  thee.     More  corrupted  else, 
And  therefore  more  ohnoxious,  at  this  hour, 
Than  Sodom  in  her  day  had  power  to  be. 
For  whom  God  heard  his  Abraham  plead  in  vain. 

Still,  England  shall  pass  through  scourging  and  revolutionary 
purgations  ;  from  which  neither  her  proud  science,  nor  her 
profound  statesmanship,  nor  her  might  of  armies,  and  navies, 
and  colonies,  nor  her  self-gratulating  and  selfish  security, 
SHALL  EVER  BEGIN  TO  BE  ABLE  to  defend  her ;  for  strong  is 
the  Lord  God  icho  jicdgcth  her.  There  is  immense  abom- 
ination in  the  sight  of  God,  ensconced  and  sanctified  in  her 
wicked  establishment.  Her  very  religion  is  an  organized 
pomp  of  hypocrisy,  for  the  most  part ;  and  though  the  con- 
crete mass  is  not  all  rotten,  probably,  yet  putridity  pervades 
it,  I  fear,  increasingly,  with  its  predicted  end. 

Still,  we  have  our  sins,  though  not  of  the  same  form  or 
degree,  in  vaster,  nobler,  and  happier  America  ;  and  I  would 
not  forget  them,  and  do  not ;  while,  in  place,  I  write  obiter, 
what  Europe,  including  all  the  realm  of  Britain,  colonial  as 
well  as  central,  may,  according  to  prophecy,  with  manifest 
desert,  anticipate — except  they  repent,  indeed  I  But,  as 
a  general  thing,  in  view  of  prophecy,  as  well  as  of  observa- 
tion, I  know  that  they  will  not  repent  I — Rev.  17  :  12-18, 
9  :  20,  21  ;  Deut.  31  :  26,  29.  And,  in  general,  their  na- 
tional character  and  way  proclaim  it. 

For  the  substance  and  scope  of  this  episode,  rhyme  and 
prose,  I  therefore  ask  no  pardon  of  earthhngs,  knowing  my 
responsibiUty  to  One  who  will  judge  us  all. 

Return  we  to  our  travel  and  our  interviews  with  President 
Adams  ;  rather  to  the  familiar  account  of  them  we  have  now 
on  hand. 

After  supper  the  president  appeared  cheerful,  though  more 
sedentary.  The  weather,  though  not  remarkably  pleasant, 
was  practicable  on  deck,  rather  warm  ;  and  there  we  walked, 


HIS    REMARKS    ON    MINISTERS.  237 

and  stood,  and  talked  for  several  hours,  with  little  or  no  in- 
terruption. I  was  aware  that  I  might  seem  to  be  monopo- 
lizing his  company,  or  occupying  it  too  steadily.  On  this 
account  I  relaxed  in  my  attentions,  when  he  called  me  to 
him,  and  resumed  the  conversation,  though  not  the  topic.  He 
spoke  of"  diflerent  divines  of  our  own  country,  and  in  several 
places,  whom  he  had  heard,  with  diflerent  impressions  of 
their  learning,  their  wisdom,  their  eloquence.  Sometimes  his 
animadversions  were  caustic  and  severe,  but  with  no  ele- 
ment discernible  of  malice.  He  mentioned  with  emphasis 
the  eloquent  ministrations  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Spring,  formerly 
of  Newburyport ;  said  he  used  to  attend  them  when  young, 
and,  if  I  remember  aright,  when  he  was  a  student  of  law  or 
recent  in  the  profession.  I  remarked  that  I  also  knew  him ; 
had  heard  him  occasionally  in  the  pulpit,  once  memorably  in 
that  of  the  late  Rev.  James  Patriot  Wilson,  D.D.*  of  Philadel- 
phia ;  had  been  in  his  company  and  enjoyed  his  conversation  ; 
and  considered  him  as  one  of  our  learned  orators,  and  honored 
pastoi's  of  the  previous  age  ;  and  asked  how  he  liked  him.  He 
replied,  I  honored  his  talents,  but  believed  not  his  docti-ine. 

1.  When  he  read  the  Bible,  Mr.  Adams,  did  you  believe  ? 

2.  Perhaps  not  in  your  way. 

I  here  spoke  with  him  on  the  nature  of  faith,  and  its  car- 
dinal importance  in  the  religion  of  the  scriptures.  I  then 
listened  to  some  discursive  remarks  on  preaching,  singing, 
and  the  worship  of  the  sanctuary,  which  he  inclined  to  make. 
He  was  very  entertaining,  and  in  fine  good  humor.  He  passed 
a  deserved  eulogy  on  the  psalmody  of  Watts,  as  a  poet  quite 
alone  in  his  exalted  excellence.  One  hymn  he  particular- 
ized, and  recited  it,  as  the  best  for  its  use  and  end,  in  his  per- 
sonal judgment,  that  could  possibly  be  written.  He  knew  it 
all  by  heart,  and  his  recitation  was  so  articulate  and  distinct, 
so  rhythmical  and  elegant,  and,  at  the  same  time,  so  manly 
and  true  to  the  sense,  that  I  shall  not  soon  forget  or  cease  to 
*  Predecessor  of  our  Doctus  Barnes. 


238  FINDS    AN    OLD    OBJECTION. 

admire  it.  It  was  a  model  of  a  manner,  snch  as  graces  too 
seldom  the  pulpit.  Since  then,  I  have  several  times  used 
that  hymn,  but  can  never  see  or  think  of  it  without  recall- 
ing the  scene  and  the  sound  when  it  was  so  well  enunciated 
by  the  President  of  the  United  States.  What  monarch  in 
Europe  could  do  it  as  well,  or  do  the  like  at  all  ? 

How  beauteous  are  their  feet 

Wlio  stand  on  Zion's  hill ; 
Who  bring  salvation  on  their  tongues, 

And  words  of  peace  reveal. 

He  went  on  with  it,  and  I  listened  with  pleasure  through  all 
the  six  stanzas,  as  I  think,  to  the  end.  He  spoke  of  the 
honor,  the  influence,  and  the  usefulness  of  the  evangelical 
ministry  ;  and  seemed  as  a  patriot  to  rejoice  that  a  class  of 
religious  teachers  so  pure  and  so  enlightened,  and  with  such 
increasing  prospective  advantages,  was  appreciated  by  the 
people,  and  desired  so  extensively  in  our  country.  I  gave 
him  my  own  estimation  of  its  incomparable  importance,  es- 
pecially to  our  own  beloved  nation,  as  the  great  balance- 
wheel  of  all  its  movements  ;  its  education  and  its  intelli- 
gence ;  its  virtue  and  its  stability ;  its  order  and  its  freedom  ; 
its  purity  and  its  perpetuity,  as  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica ;    E  PLURIBUS  UNUM  ;    SEMPER  UNUM  ! 

He  assented  ;  but,  in  a  way  of  sarcastic  humor,  he  re- 
marked on  the  difi'erences  of  theologians  as  a  great  infelicity, 
making  them  narrow-minded,  dissocial,  and  exclusive.  Why 
is  it  ?   said  he. 

1.  There  have  always  been  false  prophets  in  the  world, 
since  their  father,  the  devil,  deceived  the  mother  of  mankind. 
But  true  prophets  have  minor  difierences,  owing  to  their  own 
manifold  imperfections  as  fallen  men,  which,  however,  may 
all  coexist  Avith  substantive  soundness  in  the  faith,  challeng- 
ing mutual  forbearance  more  than  breaking  unity  and  fellow- 
ship. Still,  even  clouds  of  smoke  result  from  fire  ;  and  on 
one  side,  or  on  both  sides,  there  may  be  some  sincere  love  of 


».*v 


MUST    HAVE    ALL    SAVED,    IF    ANY    ARE.  239 

the  truth  in  every  controversy.  Indifierence  cares  for  truth 
and  error  alike,  because  it  cares  for  neither.  Agitation  is 
better  than  stagnation  ;  it  more  clarifies  the  atmosphere,  and 
renders  it  diaphanous  to  see  and  salubrious  to  breathe.  We 
are  commanded  to  contend  earnestly,  and  that  for  the  fait lo 
ONCE  DELIVERED ;  it  will  never  be  again  delivered,  even  to 
the  saints.  Men  in  the  ministry  are  all  imperfect ;  not  one 
of  them  infallible  ;  not  one  of  them  inspired.  If  they  care 
for  truth,  they  must  defend  it.  However,  I  deny  that  the 
clergy  of  this  country  are  distinguished  for  collision  and  con- 
troversy ;  I  speak  generally  of  all,  but  especially  of  sound  di- 
vines, holding  the  head.  It  is  my  own  opinion,  though  I 
seem  to  magnify  my  office  in  saying  it,  that,  as  an  entire 
class  or  body,  there  is  no  order  of  men  more  sound,  service- 
able, or  worthy  of  confidence  on  this  footstool  of  God — with 
all  their  faults. 

2.  What  mean  you  by  the  unsound  ones  ? 

1.  I  mean  those  that  belong  only  to  the  school  of  Cain — 
that  old  founder  of  a  religion  without  a  Savior  ;  that  first 
desperado  that  undertook  to  worship  without  a  Mediator, 
without  an  atonement,  without  faith  in  our  Advocate  icith 
the  Father,  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous,  xvho  is  the  propiti- 
ation for  our  sins. 

2.  So  you  exclude  all  them  ? 

1 .  Indeed  I  do,  sir ;  but  so  do  the  apostles  of  the  Lamb. 
Says  Jude,  Woe  to  them,  for  they  have  gone  in  the  way  of 
Cain !  Now  his  way,  from  a  comparison  of  passages,  we 
know  very  well.  By  exclusion,  however,  I  mean  that  I  can 
not  recognize  them  as  Christians,  and,  of  consequence,  not  as 
ministers  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

2.  Your  criterion  appears  to  me  very  refined  and  imprac- 
ticable. 

1.  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  knoio  tliem,  says  Christ.  Matt. 
7  :  13-20. 

2.  "What  fruits  are,  then,  determinate  ? 


240  DEMANDS    FALSK    CHARITY. 

1 .  They  are  three-fold  in  preachers  : 

(1)  Doctrines,  or  what  they  preach  as  compared  with  the 
Scriptures. 

(2)  Actions,  as  they  exempHfy  the  truth  in  their  conduct. 

(3)  Conversions,  as  their  converts  show  that  God,  who  giv- 
eth  the  increase,  has  regenerated  them  by  his  Holy  Spirit. 
Tlic  sheejj  of  Christ  k?iow  his  voice,  he  says,  and  foil  oiv  him, 
and  the  voice  of  a  stranger  they  tvili  not  follow. 

2.  I  am  not  satisfied. 

1.  Well,  Mr.  Adams,  take  your  favorite  hymn.  The  true 
ministiy  are  there  described  ;  those  that  preach  Jesus  Christ 
as  our  Savior,  as  human  and  divine ;  saying. 

The  Lord  makes  bare  his  arm 

Through  all  the  earth  abroad  ; 
Let  every  nation  now  behold 

Their  Savior  and  their  God. 

2.  Could  you  have  no  communion  with  a  minister  unless 
he  believed  in  the  proper  divinity  of  Christ  ? 

1.  I  could  esteem  him  as  a  citizen,  a  neighbor,  a  scholar, 
a  gentleman,  a  pleasant  companion  possibly,  and  a  useful 
man  in  the  secularities  of  society  ;  but  be  his  brother  ?  grat- 
ulate  his  ministry  ]  fellowship  his  piety  ?     Yes, 

ad  graecas  calendas. 

2.  There  is  your  exclusiveness  in  full. 

1.  Sir,  these  men  differ  from  themselves,  as  well  as  from 
each  other.  They  never  abide  in  one  stay,  except  in  com- 
mon denial  of  the  truth.  With  one,  Christ  is  a  mere  man, 
and  fallible  and  peccable  at  that ;  with  another,  the  greatest 
and  the  best  of  men  only  ;  again,  he  is  quite  superhuman — 
or,  superangelic — or,  officially  divine — or,  quite  divine,  only 
created  such ;  and  so  forth,  to  the  top  or  the  bottom  of  the 
finite  scale  ;  all  infinitely  far  from  the  truth,  all  infinitely 
wrong  I  Their  Master  is  a  mere  creature,  whom  they  know 
not,  and  are  wisely  at  a  loss  to  define  ;  ours  is  the  only  wise 


CATHOLIC    EXCLUSION.  241 

God,  our  Savior.     If  they  are  right,  we  are  idolaters  of  the 
darkest  grade  ;  if  we  are  right,  they  are  sons  of  Cain — the 
first  of  their  order — religionizing  deists  ;  and  how  can  we 
have  communion  ?  why  should  they  desire  it  ?  why  I 
2.   Well,  you  go  the  whole  figure  of  exclusion,  indeed. 

1.  Mr.  Adams,  we  are  exclusive  only  as  truth  is.  All 
truth  is  exclusive  ;  it  denies  the  other,  it  denies  the  opposite. 
The  multiplication  table  is  exclusive — in  every  arithmetical 
proposition  of  which  it  is  fairly  capable.  The  truths  of  the 
Bible  always  aftirm  the  one  and  deny  the  other.  Hence  men 
hated  its  Author,  persecuted,  murdered  him.  And  hence 
they  who  hold  his  truth  and  follow  in  his  way,  are  despised 
for  his  sake,  ultimately  to  their  honor,  as  well  as  his  own. 
Yea,  and  all  that  tvill  live  godly  in  Christ  Jesus  shall  suffer 
persecution  in  the  ways  of  calumny,  spite,  insult,  and  con- 
tempt, if  not  in  those  of  the  faggot,  the  cross,  or  the  block  ; 
since  the  offense  of  the  cross  has  not  ceased.     Gal.  5:11. 

2.  I  thought  you  were  catholic,  rather  than  exclusive. 

1.  So  in  truth  we  are  ;  but  what  is  scriptural  Catholicism  ? 
Here  it  is — to  include  all  true  Christians,  and  them  only,  as 
the  mystical  body  of  Christ  ;  thus,  grace  be  icith  all  tliem, 
not  of  our  own  party  only,  but  of  any  stripe  or  name,  that 
love  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  sincerity.  Amen.  So  con- 
cludes the  inspiration  of  the  epistle  to  the  Ephesians.  There 
are  some  that  organically  and  ecclesiastically  exclude  many 
whom,  at  the  same  time,  and  per  force,  they  own  to  be  the 
lovers  of  Christ ;  this  we  utterly  reprobate  and  disallow,  what- 
ever be  the  fiction  that  defends  it. 

2.  Your  exclusion,  then,  expatiates  in  a  larger  circumfer- 
ence than  theirs.  Its  circle  is  larger,  but  its  bounds  are 
impassable. 

1.  The  truth  of  God  is  the  criterion,  Mr.  Adams.  In  his 
light  shall  we  see  light :  and  Ave  know  that  the  circle  of 
our  Christian  Catholicism,  in  principle,  coincides  identically 
with  that  of  God's  covenant  of  grace.     "We  must  trust  HIM, 

L 


242  INSPIRATION    AS    PLENARY. 

and  if  this  be  a  burden,  it  is  one  from  which  perdition  will 
be  no  relief  To  call  it  bigotry,  contractedness,  and  all  that, 
will  never  answer.  Where,  in  the  mean  time,  is  your  trust 
in  God  ?  where  your  piety  of  subordination  ?  Besides,  the 
impenitent  and  unbelieving  are  self-excluded  from  mercy 
and  from  hope.  Their  alienation  is  voluntary,  as  well  as 
suicidal.  We  pity  them  as  well  as  blame  them  ;  and  so 
much  more  does  God.  Think  of  the  copious  and  instructive 
tears  the  Savior  wept,  not  fanatically,  not  ignorantly,  not  de- 
ceitfully, over  the  volunteer  reprobates  of  Jerusalem  I  Luke 
13  :  31-35. 

2.  You  seem  to  me  to  infer  a  great  deal  from  it,  and  your 
theology  is  thus  armed  at  all  points. 

1.  You  seem  to  me  to  infer  altogether  too  little,  if  indeed 
you  infer  any  thing,  from  the  registration  of  so  stupendous  an 
occurrence  as  those  tears  of  the  Son  of  God  at  such  a  time 
and  in  such  a  place — a  scene  so  worthy  of  the  gaze  of  ser- 
aphs. 

2.  Well,  I  own  your  version  is  quite  entertaining. 

1.  So  is  the  day  of  judgment,  dear  sir  ;  where  not  a  dull 
or  insensible  spectator  will  be  found,  where  the  truth  of  God 
will  be  all  interpreted  by  its  author,  on  the  throne  of  his 
glory  manifest,  to  the  astounded  conviction  of  the  moral 
universe.  But,  Mr.  Adams,  I  see  possibly  where  your  car- 
dinal error  lies,  the  error  of  your  unbelief. 

2.  Where? 

1.  In  you  diluted  and  mistaken  views  of  inspiration.  You 
have  no  just  conception  of  what  inspiration  is,  as  plenary, 
and  as  characterizing  a  revelation  made  to  us  from  God. 

2.  What  are  your  views,  then,  in  contrast  ? 

1.  That  is  not  the  main  or  the  proper  question  ;  but  this, 
What  account  does  the  scripture  give  of  its  own  inspiration, 
its  nature,  degree,  use,  and  end  ?  What  says  it  of  itself? 
of  our  views  are  the  same  with  its  own  averments,  they  are 
correct ;  then  only. 


WHAT  REVELATION  IS,  COMPARED.        243 

2.  Continue  :  I  am  all  attention.  Let  us  hear  about  in- 
spiration. 

1.  Well  you  might  be,  sir.  These  are  topics  that  slied  in- 
significance in  the  comparison  on  all  others.  Heroes,  stales- 
men,  philosophers,  monarchs,  presidents,  are  small  here ; 
and  what  inquiry  besides  so  grand,  so  useful,  so  necessary,  so 
profitable  to  man — to  mortal  and  immortal  man  ? 

The  world  by  wisdom  knew  kot  God.  The  experi- 
ment was  made,  the  opportunity  given,  and  all  in  the  wis- 
dom of  God.  Its  results  we  all  know.  The  monstrosities, 
and  the  fooleries,  and  the  impertinences  of  what  that  infidel 
dotard,  Gibbon,  calls  "  the  elegant  mythology  of  the  Greeks," 
demonstrate  the  fact.  We  abundantly  need  a  revelation 
from  God,  if  we  need  to  know  God. 

Revelation  and  inspiration,  however,  are  not  the  same. 
They  difler  as  genus  and  species.  Revelation  is  generic, 
and  includes  many  conceivable  kinds  and  ways  of  revealing 
— by  the  ministry  of  angels,  by  a  voice  in  the  air,  by  dreams 
and  visions,  by  special  miracles,  by  ocular  theophanies,  by 
letters  emblazed  on  the  firmament,  and  by  such  a  suggestive 
influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God  on  the  minds  of  men  as  to  se- 
cure the  result  of  spoken  or  written,  and  so  of  communicated, 
truth.  This  last,  as  written,  is  what  we  mean  by  the  in- 
spiration of  the  Scriptures.  Iii  this  sense  it  is  plenary,  as 
all-competent  to  its  proper  end.  Thus,  inspiration  in  the 
sixty-six  books  of  the  Bible  furnishes  our  glorious  revela- 
tion ;  that  is,  an  unvailing  or  a  disclosure  of  things  not 
otherwise  known,  things  unseen  and  eternal.  By  trath 
we  mean  the  doctrine  that  shows  things  as  they  are.  The 
truth  of  scripture  is  God-spoken,  and  adapted  to  our  mental 
and  our  moral,  as  well  as  to  our  mortal  and  our  immortal 
wants.  It  is  humanized  and  familiarized  to  us  in  form, 
while  in  substance  it  is  divine,  the  objective  xinity  of  the 
iSpW?  favoring  the  bond  of  peace. 

Now,  according  to  its  own  account  of  itself,  we  are  so  to 


244  FALSE    VIEWS    OF    INSPIRATION. 

receive  it  as  it  is,  and  as  the  gracious  teaching  of  God  to  our 
souls.  This  can  be  amply  verified  from  its  total  scope  and 
tenor.  Paul  says,  all  scripture  is  given  by  inspiration 
OF  God.  All  the  other  sacred  writers,  and  our  blessed  Sav- 
ior himself,  attest  the  same,  and  in  their  practice  they  so  treat 
and  so  use  it. 

Hence,  my  dear  sir,  the  question  is  primary  in  religion — 
Believest  thou  this  ?  And  this  I  mean  in  propounding  it  to 
you.     Christ  believed  it — do  you  ? 

2.  Yes,  I  believe  the  scripture  was  inspired,  and  also  the 
Iliad  of  Homer. 

1 .  My  dear  sir — 

2.  I  seem  to  believe  in  more  inspiration  than  you. 

1.  Just  so  I  but  such  inspiration  I  I  can  express  this  arti- 
cle of  your  creed,  then,  by  a  classical  aphorism — Principium 
musce  a  Jove  est  : 

That  is,  the  fountain  of  poetic  song 

Is  Jupiter  himself,  serene  and  strong, 

To  bear  the  muse  in  rapture's  flight  along. 

2.  You  describe  it  with  some  felicity. 

1 .  Ah  !  sir.  Here,  again,  I  become  discriminate  and  ex- 
clusive. What  is  a  myth  of  paganism  to  the  truth  of  God  ? 
The  prophet  that  hath  a  dream,  let  hi?n  tell  a  dream; 
and  he  that  liath  my  word,  let  him  speak  my  word  faith- 
fully. WJiat  is  the  cluxff  to  the  iclieat  ?  saith  the  Lord. — 
Jer.  23  :  28. 

I  think,  Mr.  Adams,  you  must  be  doing  injustice  to  your- 
self You  have  written  in  honor  of  the  Bible,  a  book  that 
claims  inspiration  as  the  volume  of  the  oraoles  of  God.  If 
not  inspired,  then,  what  is  it  soundly  worth  ?  What  was  the 
worth  of  the  lying  oracles  of  the  heathen  ?  What  is  that  of 
the  Koran  ?  the  Sadder  ?  the  Zendavesta  ? 


To  all  this  I  added  some  passionate  appeals  and  exhorta- 
tions, begging  him  not  to  be  afraid  or  ashamed  to  become  a 


PRIVATE    INTERVIEW    WITH    THE    CAPTAIN.  245 

little  child  at  the  feet  of  Christ,  and  learn  of  Him,  and  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  He  asked  what  I  thought  of 
the  inspiration  of  Milton,  the  Homer  of  our  language.  He 
then  descanted  in  free  and  full  sway  on  the  grandeur  of  his 
master-piece,  Paradise  Lost.  I  yielded  the  floor,  not  through 
fatigue  or  frigidity  ;  but  because  I  chose  not  to  seem  to  press 
the  argument  too  obtrusively  on  my  august  catechumen,  or 
catechist,  as  I  might  call  him.  Our  boat,  like  others  at  that 
time,  had  no  state-rooms  ;  and  our  berths,  by  what  contriv- 
ance I  know  not,  were  conterminous.  It  was  after  eleven 
before  we  retired.  The  president,  in  his  panegyric  on  Mil- 
ton, spoke,  in  language  that  I  can  not  reproduce,  of  his  great 
thought  and  rich  expression.  He  especially  honored  his  cel- 
ebrated and  richly  excellent  invocation  to  light,  with  which 
the  third  book  commences,  as  the  chef  cVczuvre  of  lofty  min- 
strelsy, quite  incomparable.  Its  opening  passages  he  then 
recited,  with  comments  and  praises  ;  seemed  enthusiastic  and 
almost  absorbed  ;  and  when  his  familiar  critique  was  ended, 
we  disrobed  for  the  night. 


In  the  morning  we  arose  with  no  hurry  or  noise,  walked 
on  deck,  discoursed  of  ordinary  events,  and  made  no  direct 
mention  of  the  conversation  of  the  previous  evening.  Our 
steamer  kept  regularly  wheeling  our  way  on  a  serene  surface 
through  the  night.  After  breakfast  we  separated  for  an  hour  ; 
and  here  an  event  surprised  me,  which,  as  characteristic  of 
the  president,  equally  delicate  and  generous  throughout,  it 
may  not  be  improper,  it  seems  indeed  a  duty,  plainly  to  re- 
hearse. The  captain  sought  a  private  interview,  and  re- 
marked, in  an  undertone,  that  when  we  arrived  at  Providence 
we  should  all  take  stage-coaches  for  Boston  ;  that  they  would 
there  be  in  readiness,  though,  as  he  should  signal  his  honored 
passenger  irom  llie  mast-head,  it  was  probable  that  the  citi- 
zens there,  as  well  as  at  Newport,  where  we  were  to  stop, 
would  make  some  patriotic  demonstrations  to  the  chief  mag- 


246  DELfCATE    KINDNESS    OF    MR.   ADAMS. 

istrate  of  the  nation,  that  might  for  a  short  time  detain  us  ; 
and  tliat  it  was  his  uiissiou  to  invite  me  to  ride  with  the 
president,  as  a  seat  would  be  reserved,  and  I  should  find  it 
agreeable,  in  more  ways  than  one,  to  be,  with  a  few  others, 
his  coinpagnoH  dii  voijage  to  the  end  of  our  journey,  as  he 
had  chartered  a  whole  coach  and  four  for  the  occasion.  I 
thanked  him  for  the  courtesy,  and  was  about  to  leave  him, 
when  he  added,  but  your  passage-money  for  the  whole  route, 
which  you  paid  yesterday,  I  am  to  return  to  you  ;  putting  it 
with  decision  into  my  hand,  Avith  the  assurance  that  the 
president  had  required  it  of  him,  and  would  probably  be  hurt 
if  I  should  seem  to  refuse  it.  It  was  unexpected,  and  in  a 
degree  embarrassing  ;  but  the  fix  was  unalterable,  and  I  ac- 
quiesced, of  course  ;  requesting  the  captain  to  convey  in  prop- 
er terms  to  the  president  my  grateful  sense  of  his  benignity 
— for  with  that,  and  not  with  the  money  as  such,  was  I  truly 
afiected  and  specially  gratified.  It  Avas  my  own  opinion  that 
the  truth  afiected  Mr.  Adams  more  than  he  appeai'ed  di- 
rectly to  indicate.  He  could  see  an  argument,  or  a  truthful 
statement,  with  sagacity  which  no  man  could  doubt  who 
knew  him.  In  reference  to  evangelical  truth,  we  had  anoth- 
er rencounter  courteous  toward  the  terminus  of  our  sail,  in 
which  himself  was  wholly  the  aggressor.  As  if  he  had  been 
concocting  it  shrewdly  with  himself  for  some  time,  he  came 
to  me  apart,  and  evidently  with  some  design,  recommenced 
on  the  subject  of  religion. 

2.  You  have  your  technical  classifications  and  definitions, 
not  only  of  difTerent  sorts  and  phases  of  religion,  but  of  the 
persons  who  profess  and  hold  them.  Now  I  feel  somewhat 
curious  to  learn  in  what  categoiy  of  the  sort  you  distribute  me  ? 

1.  I  leave  you,  dear  sir,  in  the  hands  of  God,  the  final  and 
sovereign  judge  supreme  of  all  of  us  ;  for  ice  must  all  ap- 
2)ear  before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ. 

2.  Yes,  but  what  kind  of  a  Christian  do  you  think  me  ? 
1.  A  pretty  home  question,  Mr.  Adams. 


JOHN    ADAMS    AT    MADRID. 


247 


2.  You  can  give  it  a  home  answer,  if  you  please. 

1.  I  am  not  loud  of  seeming  to  pronounce  on  the  state  of 
individuals,  in  this  or  the  future  world.  No  man  can  search 
or  see  the  heart,  as  can  God.  The  Lord  knoweth  them  that 
are  his,  as  none  other  knows  them.  But  what  a  solemn 
question  for  self-examination — Am  I  one  of  his  ? 

2.  You  seem,  however,  to  evade  my  question. 

1.  Well,  sir,  I  believe  that  no  man  is  truly  a  Christian 
who  is  not  regenerated  in  the  sense  of  scripture.  I  fear  you 
have  never  known  experimentally  what  that  is — and  this  is 
the  worst  thing  that  I  wish  to  believe  of  you  in  any  way,  and 
am  very  sorry  to  believe  that. 

2.  When  my  father  was  in  Madrid,  in  Spain,  and  was 
shown,  in  company  with  several  others,  himself  the  only  Prot- 
estant present,  some  of  the  public  edifices  and  halls,  they  came 
into  one  apartment  suddenly,  where  were  madonnas,  apostles, 
saints,  and  martyrs  in  abundance  ;  at  least,  their  statues,  pic- 
tures, relics,  and  memories.  All  the  gentlemen  performed  some 
act  of  outward  worship,  some  lower  and  more  than  others,  ex- 
cept my  father,  who  stood  erect  and  compos  sui  as  before.  This 
caused  observation  and  surprise  ;  and  the  inquiry  ran,  Is  not 
monsieur  a  Christian  ?  One  of  the  party,  who  comprehended 
it,  immediately  replied,  though  in  French,  which  they  were 
all  speaking,  Yes  ;  he  is  a  Christian,  d  sa  maniere.  But  his 
hearers  thought  him  an  infidel  for  having  such  a  manner. 

1.  Do  you  wish  to  extend  the  parallel,  sir? 

2.  No. 

1 .  Surely  you  could  not  doubt  our  Protestantism  ;  but  to  be 
a  Christian  is  more,  and  greater,  and  better  than  to  be  a  Prot- 
estant. 


I  am  well  aware  of''  the  censure  sharp,"  of  which  "  little 
reck  I,"  that  may  "  idly  cavil"  or  malignly  scoft'  at  all  this 
narration.  It  may  be  called  revealing  secrets  or  betraying 
confidence  ;  it  may  be  charged  with  bigotry  and  enmity  to- 


248  RELIGIOUS    FREEDOM    OF    OUR    COUNTRY. 

ward  freedom  of  opinion  ;  it  may  be  named  arrogance,  and 
the  assumption  of  infallibility  in  religious  doctrine  ;  it  may 
be  dismissed  with  a  sneer,  or  a  sentence  of  acrimony  and  sar- 
casm, by  those  Avhose  practical  or  spiritual  love  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures  would  put  them,  as  really  as  they  would  the  present 
writer,  and  as  soon,  if  not  sooner,  under  a  ban  of  common  rel- 
egation from  the  country,  if  nothing  prevented  them  but  the 
predominating  temper  of  their  hearts  ;  and  it  may  be  neg- 
lected utterly  or  not  by  those  whom  no  ordinary  motive  could 
influence  to  give  it  a  fair  and  a  full  perusal.  Still,  it  is  a  par- 
amount consideration  with  the  writer  that  God  knows  the  mo- 
tives that  actuate  him  in  this  matter.    God  makes  no  mistake  I 

As  to  secrecy  or  confidence,  I  know  of  no  law  of  ethics  or 
esthetics  that  I  break  or  dishonor  in  the  measure.  There 
was  no  imposition  or  implication  of  secrecy.  Why  should 
there  be  ?  or  how  could  there  be  ?  We  were  fellow-passen- 
gers, traveling  together  in  a  public  steamer.  Our  topics  were 
public  in  their  nature,  as  are  the  contents  of  the  Bible.  Mr. 
Adams  was,  as  a  man,  too  magnanimous  to  practice  a  system 
of  ambiguity  or  concealment.  If  my  own  frankness  and  di- 
rectness seem  sometimes  remarkable,  this  was  in  accordance 
with  one  of  the  prescribed  conditions  of  the  conversation. 
Besides,  I  have  no  wish  to  hinder  his  fame  in  those  relations 
in  which,  so  richly,  it  is  inalienably  his.  But  if  I  had  not 
supposed  the  narrative  would  entertain  not  only,  but  be  use- 
ful also,  I  should,  of  course,  never  have  written  it — certainly 
never  have  given  it  to  my  countrymen. 

As  for  trenching  on  liberty  of  opinion,  I  would  be  of  all 
men  furthest  behind  the  last  to  attempt  it.  Our  religious 
freedom  in  this  country  is  a  boon  too  precious,  too  glorious, 
too  incomparable,  and,  I  add,  at  once  too  perfect  in  itself, 
and  too  much  the  fruit  of  protestant  institutions  and  senti- 
ments, that  is,  too  much  the  fruit  of  the  glorious  Bible,  for 
me  ever  to  disparage  it,  ever  to  cease  to  thank  God  for  it, 
ever  to  fail  in  its  commendation  to  the  perpetual  vigilance  of 


THB    BIBLE    IS    ITS    SOURCE.  249 

my  countr}Tnen,  however  the  tyranny  of  Rome  and  hell  may 
hate  it  I  But  let  it  be  equal  and  impartial.  For  one,  I  con- 
cede, and  equally  I  claim  it.  Civil  liberty  were  mutilated 
and  contemptible  without  it ;  yes,  finally  and  properly  im- 
possible WITHOUT  IT.  Look  at  France,  Austria,  Italy, 
Spain,  Mexico,  and  all  South  America,  in  contrast  with  our 
own  grand  garden  of  the  world,  for  an  illustration.  We  are 
Protestants. 

But  lovers  of  the  Bible,  as  such,  love  hberty  naturally,  nec- 
essarily, superlatively.  Where  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
IS,  THERE  IS  LIBERTY.  The  Bible  inspires  liberty  as  well  as 
order,  purity,  and  salvation.  It  is  the  terrible  antidote  to 
all  usurpation  and  false  assumption  in  church  and  in  state. 
And  here  is  the  reason  why  certain  personages  character- 
istically proscribe  it,  why  they  inexorably  and  hypocritically 
hate  it. 

We  lovers  of  the  Bible  have  no  cause  that  requires  or  ad- 
mits of  coercion.  That  cause  can  be  obeyed  and  loved  only 
in  the  atmosphere  of  freedom,  only  as  the  result  of  the  freest 
action  of  which  the  human  mind  is  capable.  To  illumine, 
convince,  conciliate,  and  attach,  as  well  as  edify  and  comfort 
the  mind,  in  his  truth,  is,  under  God,  all  our  mission,  all  our 
work,  and  virtually  all  our  meaning,  when  we  pray.  Thy 
kingdom  come.  Teste  Deo,  we  "  do  not  even  wish  to  see 
any  religious  constitution  aided  by  the  civil  power,  further 
than  may  be  necessary  for  protection  and  security,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  he  equal  and  common  to  all  others."* 

But  there  are  some  "  liberal  Christians,"  whom  we  view, 
perforce,  as  no  Christians  at  all  (i.  Cor.  16:  22;  ii.  Pet. 
2:  1-3  ;  i.  John,  9  :  10,  11  ;  Luke,  14  :  25-35  ;  Acts,  11  : 
26  ;  Rev.  21  :  27 ;)  who  demonstrate,  sometimes  too  plainly, 
that  they  are  utterly  averse  to  the  system  of  revealed  truth 
not  only,  but  also  to  our  freedom  of  thought  as  well  as  speech 

*  Polity  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica. 

L2 


250  SELFISH    AND    FALSE    CHARITY. 

on  the  subject  of  religion — they  are  so  vastly  liberal,  and  so 
catholic,  on  particular  occasions.  Some  of  them  are  "  fierce 
for  moderation,"  as  well  as  for  spurious  and  insipid  charity, 
and  have  no  conception  of  the  real  selfishness  that  inspires 
all  their  refined  tenderness  for  others. 

Anon,  in  some  doubt  of  their  excellent  selves, 
So  deep  is  the  source  of  their  tender  emotion, 

Their  mercy  is  moved  for  less  fortunate  elves  ; 
And  that  is  the  clue  to  their  generous  devotion. 

Some  of  these  call  us  idolaters,  and  yet  "  brother"  us  occa- 
sionally, and  wish  us  always  to  "  brother"  them  I  If  they 
love  liberty  so  "liberal,"  why  grudge  it  to  us?  We  say, 
with  the  old  Augustan  poet, 

Hanc  veniam  petimusque  damusque  vicissim. 
This  privilege  Ave  take,  and  equal  give  ; 
The  Christian  freeman's  own  prerogative  ; 
Claim  and  concession  worthy  of  a  man, 
Let  honesty  and  truth  its  basis  scan  ; 
The  birth-right  dear  of  each  American. 

There  is  no  nation  on  the  face  of  the  whole  earth,  in  this 
respect,  so  favored  and  so  blessed  as  ours  I  By  the  grace  of  ^ 
God,  we  will  die,  with  or  without  a  monument,  with  or  with- 
out a  grave,  rather  than  surrender  it. 

UBI   LIBERT.4S,   IBI   PATRIA.* 

In  a  way  somewhat  more  general^  I  proceed  with  the  narra- 
tion of  that  memorable  interview. 

Mr.  Adams  said  one  thing  that  really  wounded  me  ;  wheth- 
er he  was  specially  sincere,  or  only  venturous  and  colloquial 
in  it,  I  may  not  aver,  as  possibly  I  know  not.  But  the  top- 
ic demanded  more  gravity  than  he  seemed  willing  to  bestow 
on  it ;  and  I  judged,  from  his  manner,  that  he  had  never  fair- 
ly and  fully  read  or  thought  on  the  subject.  The  groat  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  was  our  theme.  In  a  style  rather  too 
absolute,  he  resolved  our  faith,  in  that  great  article  of  the 
*  Where  is  liberty,  there  is  my  country. 


THE    TRIUNE    NATURE    OF    GOD.  251 

Bible,  into  our  ignorance  of  oriental  language,  its  metaphors 
and  its  hyperboles,  for  its  source.  Mr.  Adams  once  "  graced 
a  college,"  I  think,  as  professor  of  rhetoric ;  and  surely,  in 
that  department,  if  not  in  theology,  he  demands  or  deserves 
high  consideration.     I  replied, 

1 .  What,  sir  ?  Do  you  think  that  all  the  Reformers,  all 
the  fathers  of  English  theology,  with  such  men  as  our  own 
Edwards,  Witherspoon,  D wight,  to  say  nothing  of  Chalmers, 
Robert  Hall,  Moses  Stuart,  Archibald  Alexander,  John  H. 
Rice,  and  James  Richards,  and  hosts  of  others,  were,  on  such 
a  theme,  mere  simpletons,  rhetorically  stupid,  floundering  and 
blundering  in  sacred  places,  because  they  understood  not  the 
orientalisms  of  the  Bible  ? 

2.  I  think  they  err  in  their  views  there. 

1.  Well,  dear  sir,  how  are  yours  sustained,  if,  denying 
their  positives,  you  have  any  thing  better  than  negatives,  and 
doubts  and  objections  as  a  substitute  for  them  ;  that  is,  a 
creed  of  negations,  very  misty,  if  not  very  mysterious,  in  ref- 
erence to  the  great  centre  of  revealed  religion — Jesus  Christ, 
AND  HIM  CRUCIFIED — the  object  of  our  worship  and  the  author 
of  our  hope  ? 

2.  I  like  not,  by  your  literatizing  mistake  of  symbols,  to  be 
required  to  believe,  in  place  of  God,  in  an  old  Man,  a  Lamb, 
and  a  Dove,  and  to  worship  them  all  three  ! 

1 .  My  dear  sir,  you  shock  me  ;  and  I  regard  this  as  quite 
unworthy  of  you.  It  is  caricature  —  and  of  what  I  Who  is 
the  Savior  ?  What  think  you  of  Christ  ?  What  means  his 
title,  Son  of  God  ?  or  Son  of  Man  ?  or  the  Logos  of  John, 
1  :  1-14  ?  Lamb  is  not  his  only  title,  though  it  implicates 
subUmely,  yea,  signifies  the  only  hope  of  a  sinner. 

2.  Let  us  hear,  then,  what  you  can  say  in  defense  of  the 
Trinity. 

1  Neither  the  place,  nor  the  time,  nor  my  capacity,  per- 
mits any  justice  to  so  great  a  subject  ;  but  I  will  respond  as 
God  may  help  me,  since  you  call  for  it. 


252  INCOMPREHENSIBLE    BY    US. 

First,  then,  iu  the  abstract  or  the  general,  we  say  that  God 
is  such  a  being,  that  there  is,  in  his  proper  and  eternal  na- 
ture, a  basis  for  the  modes  of"  speech,  titles  of  distinction,  of- 
fices of  redemption,  and  pronouns  of  conference,  as  I,  thou, 
he,  we,  you,  us,  they,  and  their  cognates,  as  taught  us,  ])as!^im, 
in  the  Holy  Scriptures ;  but  these  discriminated,  and  collo- 
cated, and  correlated,  chiefly  as  the  name  of  the  Father, 

AND    OF    THE    SoN,   AND    OF    THE    HoLY   GhOST.       By   this    We 

understand  not  tritheism,  or  three  gods  ;  nor  simple  theism, 
with  Jews,  Mohammedans,  Deists,  Swedenborgians,  Arians, 
Sabellians,  Socinians,  and  savages.  We  believe  God  is  One, 
in  one  sense,  and  three  in  another  sense ;  that  the  two 
senses  are  perfectly  harmonious,  though  we  can  not  meta- 
physically define  or,  in  this  world  at  least,  fully  know  them. 
But  we  can  learn  them,  love  them,  be  humble,  and  be  saved 
by  the  one  only  true,  and  wise,  and  great  God  of  redemption. 

The  metaphysical  mystery  is  wholly  in  the  mode  ;  and 
this,  remember,  is  not  revealed  ;  it  is,  therefore,  no  object  of 
faith,  because  it  is  no  subject  of  revelation  ;  and  it  is  in  that 
respect  normally  like  the  omniscience  of  God,  his  necessary 
existence — the  grandest  of  sublime  ideas  I — his  eternity,  his 
infinity,  his  independence,  his  immutability,  and  other  essen- 
tial attributes,  incommunicable  and  adorable  forever. 

The  distinction  between  the  fact  and  the  mode  of  any  re- 
ality contemplated  is  perfectly  sound  and  just,  and  nobly 
philosophical.  It  is  also  baconian  and  immensely  import- 
ant. It  is  applicable  almost  equally  to  all  known  objects 
in  nature,  in  science,  in  daily  observation,  and  in  religion. 
What  would  become  of  us,  if  we  could  never  believe  a  fact, 
and  act  on  the  faith  of  it,  till  we  could  comprehend  as  well 
the  mode  of  it  ?  How  can  these  things  be  ?  said  Nicodemus. 
How  are  the  dead  raised  ?  said  the  fool  at  Corinth.  How 
is  the  soul  incarnate  in  the  body,  or  how  moves  my  will,  my 
tongue  in  speaking,  or  my  hand  in  writing  a  word  ?  The 
mode  is  the  sphere  of  what  we  call  mystery— only  because 


MYSTERY,   WHAT    IT    M£ANS.  253 

of  its  superiority  to  us  or  our  ignorance  of  it.  I  say,  what 
we  call  mystery  ;  that  is,  somewhat  that  is  incomprehens- 
ible, or  not  metaphysically  intelligible.  The  word  is  never 
found  in  the  Old  Testament.  In  the  New  it  occurs,  I  think, 
just  twenty-seven  times — meaning  always  a  fact  or  reality 
known  only  as  revealed  to  us  ;  and,  consequently,  not  at  all 
anticipated,  not  otherwise  attainable  ;  and  then,  as  revealed 
and  ascertained,  like  any  other  fact — only  more  august  as  re- 
ligious and  divine  :  according  to  the  revelation  of  the 
MYSTERY,  xvhich  icus  kcjit  secret  si?ice  the  tcorld  began,  but 
NOW  IS  MADE  MANIFEST,  and  by  the  Scrijyttires  of  the  proph- 
ets, according  to  the  comniaiulment  of  the  everlasting  God, 

MADE  KNOWN  TO  ALL  NATIONS,  FOR  THE  OBEDIENCE  OF  FAITH. 

In  regard  to  the  Trinity,  I  understand  the  reality  as  a  re- 
vealed fact.  I  can  state  it  and  prove  it  as  any  other  re- 
vealed object ;  and  I  can  understand  the  fact  and  the  doc- 
trine, but  not  the  mode  of  the  great  reality. 

2.  But  the  mode  of  it  you  can  not  understand  ? 

1.  No  !  nor  the  mode  essential  of  almost  any  thing.  We 
state  the  reality  negatively,  positively,  relatively,  officially, 
and  copiously  ;  but  the  mode  we  neither  state,  nor  know,  nor 
believe  ;  but  we  hope  in  heaven,  where  /  shall  know  even 
as  also  I  am  known,  to  begin  in  a  career  of  progression  in 
knowledge,  as  well  as  perfect  beatitude,  that  wiU  never  end. 
There  many  objects,  and  possibly  that,  will  be  so  illumined 
to  our  ininds,  that  our  knowledge  shall  increase  as  with  elec- 
tric speed,  and  like  the  "swift-winged  arrows  of  light"  as 
they  radiate  from  the  sun.  Till  then  we  can  trust  the  Lord, 
and  so  be  availed  of  what  He  knows.  The  foolishness  of 
God  is  wiser  tha7i  onen,  as  some  of  us  judge. 

2.  This  does  not  prove  the  reality  or  thing  affirmed. 

1 .  Well,  it  prepares  for  it.  Suppose  the  abstract  view  I 
have  stated  agrees  with  the  total  scope  of  scripture,  and  none 
other  does,  what  are  we  to  inier  ?  Give  me  a  better  one, 
and  let  me  prove  it  as  such,  and  I  will  make  the  exchange. 


254  THE    NAME    WE    GET    IN    BAPTISM. 

It  is  easier  to  pull  down  than  to  build  up  ;  to  nurse  a  de- 
mur, than  to  vindicate  a  position  ;  too  easy  for  some  minds 
to  unsettle  every  thing,  and  settle  nothing.  A  creed  of  ne- 
gations is  only  a  thin  screen  of  ignorance  and  deceit.  God 
save  us  from  error  I 

2.  Better  that  than  to  settle  it  wrong. 

1 .  Possibly  ;  and  yet  to  be  ever  learning,  and  never  able 
to  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  is  no  compliment  to 
revelation,  or  to  our  own  wisdom  or  docility.  It  is  made  in 
scripture  one  of  the  marks  of  a  reprobate,  ii.  Tim.  3:7;  Psalm 
25  :  8,  9,  14,  as  heady,  high-minded. 

2.  On  what  proof  do  you  mainly  rely  to  establish  the 
reality  ? 

1.  One  instance  palpable  may  be  adduced — the  text  al- 
ready mentioned.  In  the  conclusion  of  Matthew,  the  Savior, 
having  been  forty  days  risen  from  the  dead,  and  just  about 
to  be  translated  in  his  ascension  to  heaven,  gives  the  great 
commission  of  the  ministry  for  discipling  the  nations  till  the 
end  of  lime  ;  thus,  Go  ye  therefore  and  discij)le  all  the  na- 
tions, baptizing  them  to  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of 
THE  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost  ;  teachiftg  them  to  ob- 
serve all  tilings  ichatsoever  I  have  conwianded  you;  and 
lo  .'  I  am  icith  you,  ahcay,  to  the  end  of  the  world.    Amen. 

I  have  changed  the  phraseology  in  our  version  in  a  way 
to  which  no  man  will  object,  as  it  is  not  fundamental,  and 
as  it  makes  the  true  sense  more  definite  and  impressive  ;  and 
I  allege, 

(1)  The  importance  of  these  words.  They  meet  us  all  at 
the  threshold  of  the  Church  visible.  Every  worshiper  is 
TO  BE  MARKED  WITH  THEM.  The  name  we  get  in  baptism 
is  this  name,  and  none  other — not  John  or  Mary,  but  the 
name  of  the  three.  In  the  ancient  oriental  adoption,  the 
adopting  communicated  his  name  to  the  adopted  party  ;  and 
so  God  visibly  adopts  us  in  that  solemn  ordinance  ;  as  all  (f 
the  nations  on  whom  my  name  is  called  upon  them,  saith 


THE    ROCINIAN    MUMMERY.  255 

the  Lord,  xvlio  docth  all  these  thingx  (Acts,  15  :  17,)  as  is 
the  original,  so  emphatically  repetitious. 

(2)  It  is  plainly  an  act  of  solennn  and  spiritual  worship  to 
the  fuime  of"  God,  dedicating  the  party. 

(3)  The  words  arc  spoken  by  the  Redeemer  himself;  no 
fiction  or  tradition  of  men  at  all. 

(4)  They  teach  the  triune  nature  of  our  God,  are  perfectly 
congruous  with  that  doctrine,  and  properly  with  none  other, 
epitomizing  the  current  usage  of  the  total  scripture  from 
Moses  to  John. 

Let  us  try  one  somewhat  popular  theory,  and  see  if  it  does 
not  invert  the  pyramid  w^ith  a  witness  for  "  rational  Christi- 
anity," from  infinite  to  nothing,  in  horrible  nonsense  and  im- 
pious confusion,  with  a  witness. 

I  baptize  thee  to  the  name  of  the  Father — who  is  in  every 
sense  alone  the  true  God,  and  of  the  Son — who  is  not  God 
at  all,  but  a  mere  creature,  if  not  a  mere  man,  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost — who  is  neither  God,  nor  man,  nor  angel,  nor 
being,  nor  moral  consciousness,  but  only  an  oriental  hyper- 
bole or  metaphor,  or  energy,  or  attribute,  or  quality,  or  in- 
fluence, or  efi'usion,  or  idea,  or — nothing  at  all  in  the  universe  ; 
and  so  thou  art  baptized.  Amen.  Alas  I  alas  I  for  the  pseudo- 
ministrations  that  enact  it  I  I  I 

No  orthodox  Church  or  ministry,  however,  acknowledges 
the  act  of  those  Socinians,  or  recognizes  it  as  baptism.  In 
quite  a  number  of  instances,  I  have  so  administered  ;  baptiz- 
ing the  party  with  no  respect  for  the  worthless  infidel  nullity 
before  performed — nor  is  it  anabaptism  I 

2.  You  seem  to  make  it  of  considerable  importance. 
1.  Certainly,  sir,  of  fundamental  importance  ;  I  never  saw 
the  first  educated  man,  denying  the  triune  God,  who  did  not 
sweep  away  as  well  the  whole  system  of  redemption,  after 
denying  the  only  xcise  God  of  redemption,  ^yhen  the  foun- 
dation is  everted,  where  is  the  superstructure  ?  To  my  soul 
it  is  revolting  and  tremendous  I — Gen.  49  :  6  ;  Psalm  139  : 


256  A    PERSONAL    DEVIL    IS    REVEALED. 

19-24.  Sometimes,  indeed,  they  manage  it  to  a  large  extent, 
in  the  way  of  habituated  preterition,  always  remembering  to 
forget  to  pay  any  court  or  notice  to  it  at  all  I  So  might  an 
astronomer  omit  the  sun  in  the  system  of  the  planets  ;  or  an 
anthropologist,  the  soul  in  the  body  ;  or  an  ontologist,  the 
founder  of  creation  and  the  author  of  all  other  moral  beings. 
2.  How  know  you  what  doctrines  are  fundamental  ? 

1.  It  may  be  difficult  to  state  it  scientifically — -just  as  in 
a  large  mansion  it  might  not  be  easy  to  define  every  part 
that  is  essential  to  the  structure.  In  proportion,  however, 
to  the  perfection  of  the  architecture,  and  the  utility  or  the 
grandeur  of  the  pile,  one  would  desire  no  dilapidation  or  mu- 
tilation of  its  harmonious  whole.  It  is  surely  fundamental 
to  our  piety  to  receive,  sincerely  and  in  its  own  integrity,  the 
virtual  whole  of  the  inspiration  of  our  God  ;  and  not  pick  and 
cull,  according  to  our  prejudice,  our  caprice,  our  ignorance, 

or OUR  M''ISDOM  I 

2.  And  they  do  this  who  reject  the  Trinity,  you  think. 

1 .  Mr.  Adams,  here  is  a  test  of  our  professed  subjection  to 
the  gosjoel  of  Christ,  which  all  light  and  frivolous  religionists 
unite  in  repudiating  or  scouting — I  mean  the  belief  of  a  per- 
sonal devil  and  his  angels.  As  a  fact,  this  is  clearly  revealed 
all  through  the  Bible.  Hence  Ave  believe  it.  It  is  implicated 
in  a  thousand  ways  with  the  total  system.  Yet  is  it  rejected, 
or  explained  away,  by  all  Universalists,  all  anti-Trinitarians, 
all  rationalistic  authors,  with  iew  if  any  exceptions  ;  none 
that  are  clear  and  true  in  the  revealed  faith  of  it. 

2.  It  is  not  very  pleasing  to  think  of  such  personages. 

1.  Very  likely ;  but  God  has  revealed  them  and  their  agen- 
cies. 

2.  These  are  more  mysteries  in  the  category. 

1 .  Yes,  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom. 

2.  And  you  wish  us  all  to  receive  them  ? 

1.  Certainly,  cordially,  intensely,  I  do  ;  as  I  would  to  God 
you  had  the  humiliating  self-knowledge  to  understand  why, 


SUPPOSITION    AND    FACT.  257 

EXACTLY  WHY,  you  do  not  receive  them.  You  there  volun- 
tarily and  impiously  repel  from  the  windows  of  your  soul  the 
solicitations  of  the  visiting  light  of  heaven,  that  would  illu- 
mine and  decorate  all  the  chambers  of  your  conscious  habi- 
tation, and  give  you  the  truth,  the  grace,  the  glory  of  the  com- 
plete salvation  of  our  Savior  and  our  God. 

2.  But  how  can  I  believe  what  I  can  not  understand  ? 

1.  Well,  but  suppose  you  believe  not  what  you  do  under- 
stand ;  and  reject  this  grand  doctrine  of  the  grander  reality 
of  the  ETERNAL  GODHEAD,  Only  bccausc  you  can  not  compre- 
hend the  essential  mode  of  that  reality — which  mode  is  not 
revealed,  not  believed  by  us,  and  not  related  directly  or  pos- 
sibly to  our  faith  at  all,  any  more  than  it  is  absolutely  to  our 
knowledge  ? 

2.  Suppose  it  confounds  me  only  ? 

1.  We  may  suppose  any  thing,  Mr.  Adams.  Let  us  sup- 
pose that  whatsoever  things  ivere  written  aforetime  were 
written  for  our  learning,  that  xve,  through  patience  and 
comfort  of  the  Scriptiires,  might  have  hope  ?  Oh  I  that  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  might,  in  sovereign  mercy  and  power,  make 
you  his  illuminated  and  true  disciple  I  as  of  old  it  is  written, 
Then  opened  he  their  U7iderstanding,  that  they  might  un- 
derstand the  Scriptures. — Luke,  24  :  45 ;  Acts,  16  :  14; 
Eph.  1  :  17,  18. 

2.  I  have  no  reason  to  doubt  your  sincerity. 

1.  Ah  I  dear  sir,  how  would  it  rejoice  heaven  and  earth 
if  you  were  truly  to  repent  of  your  sins,  and  believe  with  your 
heart  to  righteousness  ;  that  is,  to  justification  in  the  glori- 
ous way  of  God  I 

2.  It  seems  to  me  that  you  believe  it,  at  all  events. 

1.  Mr.  Adams,  God  loves  you  more  than  all  other  beings 
in  the  universe  do  or  can  love  you  I  He  loves  not  your  sins, 
but  he  loves  you  I  If  he  loved  your  sins,  yourself  he  could 
not  love ;  since  your  sins  are  your  own  worst  enemies,  as 
really  as  they  are  his  ;  and  since  it  were  impossible  for  us  to 


258  FACTS    IN    NATIRE    ANALOGOUS. 

love  him,  so  as  to  have  our  sins  pardoned  for  Christ's  sake, 
if  we  could  suspect  at  all  that  he  loves,  or  not  supremely 
hates  our  sins.  Sin  is  the  greatest  evil,  and  the  cause  or 
the  occasion  of  all  other  evils,  in  the  universe.  The  wisdom 
of  the  pnulcnt  is  to  iaidc?stand  his  way  ;  but  the  folly  of 
fools  is  deceit.  Fools  make  a  tnock  at  sin  ;  but  among  the 
righteous  there  is  favor. — Prov.  14  :  8,  9. 

2.  There  seems  little  promise  of  my  adopting  these  views. 

1.  I  fear  as  much,  Mr.  Adams.  But  truth  is  just  the  same, 
whatever  we  are,  whatever  we  do,  and  whether  we  are  saved 
or  lost.     It  is  the  eternal  offspring  of  God. 

In  some  scientific  histories,  I  have  known  facts  analogous 
and  illustrative.     One  I  will,  if  you  please,  rehearse. 

2.  I  shall  be  happy  to  hear  it,  sir.  You  are  quite  enter- 
taining, I  must  own. 

1.  I  refer  to  what  was  once  called,  and  with  great  empha- 
sis and  notoriety,  the  mystery  of  the  Mediterranean. 

Certain  phenomena  or  plain  facts  were  known  to  the  anti- 
baconian  philosophers  of  an  eatlier  age,  touching  that  grand 
inland  sea,  which  none  of  them  could  explain  ;  but  I  never 
read  of  one  of  them  attempting  to  deny  them  on  that  ac- 
count. They  were  paradoxes,  proved  and  known,  and  so  ac- 
credited as  facts  ;  yet  they  seemed  to  all  the  world  like  con- 
tradictions and  impossibilities.  Men,  however,  that  knew  the 
facts,  believed  them  ;  though  the  mode  of  the  facts,  either 
relative  or  essential,  they  could  not  believe,  or  explain,  or 
contradict,  or  know.  They  owned  the  mystery,  and  held  the 
facts,  perhaps  hoping  that  the  future  would  bring  the  possi- 
ble, but  quite  improbable  solution.  You,  I  dare  say,  are  well 
aware  of  it. 

That  Great  Sea,  as  the  Jews  called  it,  as  an  immense  ba- 
sin inclosed  by  three  continents  —  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  re- 
ceives from  them  in  all  directions,  always,  their  watery  trib- 
utes ;  from  the  Black  Sea,  itself  fed  by  a  hundred  tributaries, 
through  the  Dardanelles,  the  narrow  strait 


MYSTERY    OF    THE    MEDITERRANEAN.  259 

Longus  in  angustum  qua  clauditur  Hellespontus  ; 
rroin  the  Nile,  the  Oiontes,  the  Adige,  the  Po,  the  Rhone,  the 
Ebro,  and  the  vast  Atlantic  at  the  Straits  of"  Gibraltar,  and 
from  a  thousand  minor  streams,  all  forever  pouring  their 
quotas  into  it,  and  yet  the  basin  is  never  full.  The  learned 
desideratum  was  to  find  the  outlet ;  since  some  outlet,  and 
that  a  large  one,  they  knew  it  must  have.  Hence  ingenuity 
and  theory,  imagination  and  exploration,  were  set  to  find  it, 
and  could  not,  it  was  so  large,  so  obvious,  so  circumambient, 
and  so  proximate  to  every  one. 

Parties,  sects,  and  controversies  soon  resulted ;  "  each 
claiming  truth,  and  truth  disclaiming"  all.  The  Mediter- 
ranean, however,  remained  in  armed  neutrality  the  same  ; 
in  storms  and  calms  alternate,  as  of  yore  ;  since  the  deluge  ; 
since  Jonah  navigated  it ;  since  Paul  was  shipwrecked  there, 
in  a  place  tchere  two  seas  met ;  or  since,  so  long  before,  ^Ene- 
as  and  his  companions  crossed  it  twice,  in  their  perilous  voy- 
age from  Troy  to  Italy. 

One  theory  taught  the  probability  of  a  subterranean  outlet 
under  the  iron-bound  coast  of  Barbary  ;  reaching  far  into 
Central  Africa,  and  absorbed  in  the  lower  sti-ata  of  that  ocean 
of  sand,  so  dry  and  bibulous,  which  constitutes  the  torrid  des^ 
ert  of  her  interior.  Very  possible,  or  very  probable,  they  said. 
But  it  was  a  theory  which  no  fads  supported,  or  even  seemed 
to  prove — with  other  facts  quite  contrary. 

Some  wiser  venturer  superseded  it  by  the  more  taking  hy- 
pothesis of  a  counter  sub-current  at  the  Straits,  where  the 
ocean  superficially  ran  in,  while  the  sea  profoundly  ran  out, 
thus  restoring  the  perpetual  cequor  of  the  extended  surface. 
But  navigators,  by  their  deep  soundings,  as  they  sailed  in- 
ward or  outward,  absolutely  refuted  and  scouted  it,  though 
quite  a  deep  theory  ! 

The  next  theory,  I  think,  was  surer  yet.  Spain  and  Port- 
ugal were  spread  on  a  vast  quadrangular  peninsula,  sepa- 
rated from  France  by  the  comparatively  narrow  Pyranaean 


260  THEORIES    FOR    SOLUTION. 

isthmus.  This  extended  westward  from  the  Gulf  of  Lyons, 
and  eastward  from  the  Bay  of  Biscay  ;  and  the  perpetual 
paroxysms  of  that  troubled  estuation  of  the  Atlantic  might 
well  consist  with  tlie  idea  that  the  Mediterranean  had  there 
its  subterranean  and  its  submarine  debouchment  to  the  ocean, 
so  long  unknown  to  men  and  mariners  I  What  a  precious 
discovery  it  was — not. 

Other  theories  of  the  sort  were  multiplied.  One,  south- 
eastward to  the  Red  Sea ;  another,  northeastward  into  the 
Black  Sea  ;  and  still  another,  from  the  Adriatic  and  the  Gulf 
of  Venice,  under  the  mountain  ribs  of  the  breast  of  Europe, 
into  the  Baltic. 

All  these  theories,  like  bubbles  from  boys'  blow-pipes,  went 
up,  danced  brilliantly,  reflected  realities,  and  fell  forgotten. 
No  evidence  sustained  them.  The  mystery  remained — be- 
cause the  ignorance  did.  But  we  hear  or  read  of  no  Socinian 
school  starting  into  being  to  den-y  the  facts,  because  they 
could  not  solve  the  mystery  connected  with  them,  or  get  up 
a  sectarian  "  opposition  line"  in  self-defense  against  the  in- 
flexible and  inhuman  orthodoxy  of  the  facts.  It  was  really 
humiliating  to  the  philosophy  of  ages,  especially  to  some  whose 
profounder  ignorance  utterly  neglected  or  despised  the  facts. 

But  the  solution  came  at  last,  and  filled  philosophy  and 
the  world  with  wonder  and  delight.  A  chemist  in  London, 
1  forget  his  name,  making  some  experiments  in  an  obscure 
attic  or  cellar,  I  think,  in  reference  to  the  analysis  of  water, 
found  the  solution.  He  found  the  outlet — by  looking  toward 
heaven  !  It  was  aerial,  and  vast  as  the  superincumbent  at- 
mosphere. It  Avas  all  explained  by — evaporation.  It  was 
as  clear  as  the  light  of  the  sun,  as  certain  as  the  power  of 
heat,  and  as  fully  demonstrated  as  the  facts  which  it  alone 
could  explain.  Indeed,  the  mystery  was  almost  reversed. 
The  known  ratios  of  evaporation,  applied  to  the  surface  of 
that  spacious  sea,  containing  at  least  one  million  of  square 
miles,  and  in  the  mean  latitude  of  thirty-five,  seemed  to  im- 


MYSTERY  ALL  RELATIVE.  261 

ply  an  aerial  exhaustion  so  great  as  to  exceed  all  its  sources 
of  supply,  especially  with  the  local  climate,  in  some  parts  so 
rainless  and  so  intensely  hot.  But  the  solution  evaporated  the 
mystery  ;  and  the  facts,  if  better  now  appreciated,  are  not  more 
real  than  they  were  before  Cadmus  came  to  Greece,  or  all 
Phoenicia,  from  Tyre  and  Sidon,  began  their  pioneering  nav- 
igations to  the  West. 

2.  Think  ^ou  all  mysteries  could  be  analogously  solved  ? 

1.  All  realities  are  not  equally  simple  or  equally  abstruse. 
This,  however,  I  believe,  that  all  intellect  is  homogeneous  in 
nature,  varying  only  in  its  volume,  its  degree,  its  operation, 
and  its  circumstances  ;  and  that  God  knows  all  things  abso- 
lutely, all  actual,  all  possible,  all  hypothetical,  all  desirable, 
or  the  reverse,  and  all  these  in  all  possible  combinations,  to 
perfection.  He  will  never  grow  any  wiser  than,  as  omnis- 
cience, he  ever  was  and  now  is.  He  can  not  go  to  school  to 
his  own  works,  to  make  experiments  and  leani  wisdom.  To 
him  there  is  no  mystery,  nothing  real  or  ideal  that  is  not  to 
him  perfectly  comprehensible.  He  is  the  only  being  that 
perfectly  understands  himself;  and  how  far,  if  we  ever  get 
by  grace  to  heaven,  Ave  may  approximate,  a  million  of  cycles 
of  ages  after  the  day  of  judgment,  to  the  knowledge  of  him- 
self, it  takes  God  to  know.  Two  things,  however,  I  fully 
belifrve  in  this  relation  : 

(1)  One,  that  our  progressions  there  will  be  accelerated, 
as  large  and  glorious,  and  without  end. 

(2)  The  other,  that  we  and  all  creatures  shall  forever  re- 
main infinitely  short  of  God  in  knoAvledge,  glory,  and  perfec- 
tion. 

Thus  mysteries  are  all  relative,  and  they  will  in  succession, 
not  painful  there,  nor  probationary  and  perilous  as  here,  con- 
tinue forever. 

This,  indeed,  will  be  the  method  of  our  happiness  in  holi- 
ness, and  our  holiness  in  happiness  ;  and  in  heaven  they  are 
all  too  philosophic  to  object  to  mysteries,  or  to  entertain  any 


262  WITTY    AND    PERTINACIOUS. 

prejudice  against  them.  How  different  from  us  poor  sinners 
in  this  world  !  Mr.  Adams,  I  should  like  to  know  your  hope 
of  heaven,  its  basis,  its  medium,  its  nature,  its  strength,  and 
its  power  to  purify  and  comfort  you.  There  is  such  a  thi'ig 
as  knowing  God,  and  participating  his  own  blessedness  be- 
gun in  this  world.  To  you,  indeed,  this  may  seem  like  en- 
thusiasm, though  I  trust  I  know  it  as  the  truth  and  the  so- 
berness of  Christianity.  • 


On  all  these  conferences  with  Mr.  Adams,  I  have  frequent- 
ly pondered  with  religious  interest  and  solemnity.  He  seem- 
ed at  once  observably  fixed  in  non-committal,  and  pertina- 
cious both  in  his  questions  and  in  his  constancy  of  continuance. 
He  never  seemed  wearied  with  the  subjects,  whatever  was 
the  reason.  When  interrupted  in  some  way,  he  would  re- 
commence them.  Often  was  I  apprehensive  of  reducing  his 
patience  or  fatiguing  his  bodily  powers.  When  we  retired 
at  night,  it  was  considerably  after  eleven,  if  I  remember 
aright.  But  he  appeared  vivacious  and  colloquial  as  ever  to 
the  last.  In  the  morning,  I  felt  some  remorse  lest  I  had 
been  tedious,  obtrusive,  or  inconsiderate  of  his  health  or  ease ; 
but  he  owned  no  such  thing  ;  asking  questions  or  raising  ob- 
jections, in  a  pleasant,  sub-sarcastic  way,  as  usual  ;  and  now 
and  then  venturing  some  witty  and  pointed  remark,  rather 
caustic  or  satirical.  And,  unlike  old  Priam,  his  shots  struck 
with  effect,  not  damage. 

Sic  fatus  senior,  telumque  imbelle  sine  ictu 

Conjecit. 

So  spake  the  veteran  sage,  and  threw  his  dart 

With  warless  pleasantry  to  strike  the  heart. 

Sharp  was  the  weapon,  yet,  with  grace  impell'd, 

It  ghded  bloodless  from  th'  opposing  shield. 

Yet  was  there,  truth  to  say,  no  martial  preparation,  as  in  the 
example  of  the  brave  old  Trojan  monarch,  when,  on  stern 
occasion,  as  we  read, 


RELIGIOUS    THOUGHT    AND    CONVERSE.  263 

Arma  diu  senior  dcsueta  trementibus  aevo 
Circunulat  neqiiioquam  hiiincris,  ct  inutile  fcrrum 
Cingitur,  ac  densos  fertur  moriturus  in  hostes. 

His  arms  so  long  disused  with  trembling  care 
The  sire  his  shoulders  gives,  in  vain  to  bear ; 
And,  bent  on  death,  he  rushes  to  the  host 
Of  thickest  foes,  to  conquer  or  be  lost. 

Our  colloquy,  though  dissident  enough,  was  not  polemical ; 
and  his  bearing  or  manner,  whatever  was  the  wisdom  he 
manifested,  I  am  happy  to  declare,  was  dignified  and  gentle- 
manly, was  courteous  and  benignant,  was  consistent  and  at- 
tractive. And  as  he  seemed  set  on  purpose  to  pursue  the  con- 
versation, and  as  such  topics  are  not  only  in  themselves  of 
importance  to  all  men,  perfectly  supreme,  but,  alas  I  woefully 
neglected,  while  trifles  and  squalid  anxieties  in  common  oc- 
cupy the  thoughts  and  the  words  of  the  million  and  the  ton, 
and  as  it  is  of  hopeful  augury  to  attend  to  the  things  of  re- 
ligion almost  in  any  way,  rather  than  to  omit  and  neglect 
them  altogether,  (Phil.  1  :  15-18,)  so  I  was,  on  this  account 
as  well  as  others,  more  than  willing  to  correspond  with  him, 
and  to  defend  the  truth  as  wisely  and  well  as  I  could,  accord- 
ing to  the  ability  ichich  God  giveth ;  that  God  in  all 
things  niay  be  glorified  throicgh  Jesus  Christ,  to  tchom  be 
jxraise  and  do7?tinion  forever  and  ever.  He  seemed  willing, 
and  even  eager  to  hear,  as  our  themes  were  probably  refresh- 
ing to  him,  so  different  from  the  perplexities  of  statesman- 
ship and  the  cares  of  the  nation  which  ordinarily  engrossed  his 
mind,  that  their  novelty  and  variety,  at  least,  made  them  en- 
tertaining. This,  indeed,  he  several  times  remarked  to  me  ; 
now  and  then  in  terms  of  gratification  and  encouragement 
too  emphatic  to  be  recited.  I  trust  that  some  zeal  for  his 
salvation,  and  the  glory  of  God  in  his  regeneration,  as  possi- 
ble and  hopeful,  were  among  the  actuating  motives  of  all  I 
said  to  him. 

On  the  subject  of  the  Trinity  he  said  httle  ;  and  seemed 


264  PAGANISM    OF    ITALIAN    PAINTERS. 

not  to  have  studied  it  in  any  aspect  of  its  polemic  or  didactic 
relations.  Still,  he  seemed  quite  willing  to  hear  an  orthodox 
statement  and  defense  of  it.  The  idea  that  the  terms  Father 
and  Soti  are  correlative,  or  the  method  of  illustrating  their 
mutual  relations,  seemed  never  to  have  occupied  his  mind. 
In  reference  to  the  third,  in  the  adorable  triad  of  the  God- 
head, his  ideas  appeared  all  confused,  and  even  superficial 
and  inane.  The  oriental  symbol  of  a  dove  was  constantly 
fluttering  in  his  imagination,  as  at  once  picturesque  and 
empty,  not,  however,  without  some  palliation,  as  I  judge. 

The  paganism  of  popery,  the  pictures  and  the  designs  of 
the  artists  of  Italy,  have  tinctured  all  Christendom  with  their 
manifold  influences  of  insidious,  and  noxious,  and  paganizing 
eiTor.  One  instance  is — the  common  mistake  that  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Holy  Ghost,  at  the  public  baptism  of  the  Son  of 
God,  was  visibly  embodied  in  the  form  and  likeness  of  a  dove, 
descendant  and  couchant  on  his  head  at  the  time.  Thus,  in 
their  cathedrals,  an  aged  person,  a  youthful  one,  and  a  dove, 
are  profanely,  and  stupidly,  and  sinfully,  as  well  as  common- 
ly, emblazed,  with  artistic  skill  of  some  sort,  "  a  Guido  or  a 
daub,"  in  a  place  central  and  conspicuous,  to  attract  the 
worship  of  the  people,  in  spite  of  the  second  commandment. 
And  though  we  may  brook  an  imitation  of  it,  or  an  approx- 
imation to  it  in  poetry,  yet  is  it  both  dangerous,  and  fortified  or 
sanctioned  not  at  all  by  the  original  scriptures.  Thus,  Cow- 
per,  "  Return,  0  holy  Dove,  return  ;"  and  Watts,  "  Come, 
holy  Spirit,  heavenly  Dove  ;"  to  name  no  others.  Com- 
pare Deut.  4: 12-19,  with  Mat.  3  :  16  ;  Mark,  1  -.  10  ;  Luke, 
3  :  22  ;  John,  1  :  32,  33. 

Let  us  distinguish  between  a  visible  symbol,  as  of  a  dove 
in  form  and  semblance,  descending  and  abiding  on  Him  ;  and 
the  manner  of  its  descending,  as  dove-like,  gentle,  undulat- 
ing, lambent,  noiseless,  graceful,  lovely — all  that  the  action 
of  the  pinions  of  a  dove  could  symbolize  or  exemplify.  Now 
1  affirm  that  the  latter,  and  not  the  former,  is  illustrated  by 


MANNER,    NOT    FORM,    "AS    A    DOVE."  266 

the  expression  as  a  dove,  and  that  this  is  all  that  it  means. 
The  Holy  Ghost  no  more  appeared  in  the  form  or  the  pictur- 
esque outline  of  that  beautiful  and  lovely  bird,  than  did  the 
Lamb  of  God  in  the  shape  and  proportions  of  that  clean,  and 
useful,  and  innocent  animal.  Nay,  the  Son  is  called  the 
Lamb  often  ;  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Dove,  or  a  Dove,  never,  in 
the  Bible.  Thus  a  good  grammarian  would  refer  the  ex- 
pression, or  the  words  cjaei  irepiOTepdv,  as  or  in  the  manner 
of  a  dove,  not  to  the  bodily  shape  or  visible  and  palpable 
symbol,  that  is,  the  shekinah  of  glory  that  appeared  and 
rested  on  him;  but  to  the  act  of  descending,  showing  its 
manner,  as  most  soft,  mild,  and  mansuete  in  its  movement 
and  its  rest.  The  symbol  had  a  form,  and  also  a  manner  of 
movement ;  the  latter  only  is  illustrated  by  the  words  as  a 
dove ;  the  movements  were  so  serene  and  so  graceful. 

If  this  be  the  truth,  then,  no  literalizing  blunder  could  be 
for  a  moment  sustained  in  identifying  the  form  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  in  our  worship,  with  the  image  of  a  dove  ;  and  there 
is  properly  no  foundation  for  such  a  gross,  and  literalizing,  and 
paganizing  blunder  at  all.  We  should  be  practically  jealous 
here  for  the  purity  of  the  worship  of  JehovaJi. — John,  4  :  23, 
24.  There  is  danger  of  impiety  in  the  grossness.  On  tlie 
great  topic  which  the  Lamb  implies,  namely,  his  propitiatory 
sacrifice  for  our  sins,  that  God  might  be  just,  and  thejusti- 
fier  of  him  that  believeth  in  Jesus,  I  had  less  opportunity  in 
proportion  to  converse.  Mr.  Adams,  however,  seemed  to  dis- 
credit it,  especially  as  it  implied  so  awfully  the  implacability 
of  God,  in  his  view.  The  implication  I  fully  denied  ;  affirm- 
ing just  the  opposite;  the  death  of  Christ,  the  just  for  the 
unjust ;  indeed,  his  whole  mediation,  his  mission  and  his  pas- 
sion, were  the  grandest  demonstration  the  universe  ever  saw 
of  the  eternal  placability  of  God. — John,  3:16,  17  ;  i.  John, 
4  :  7-16. 

All  was  willing  ;  God  required  it ; 
All  was  ready  ;  love  inspired  it ; 
M 


260  WASHINGTON    AND    MAJOR    ASDRt. 

Love  the  prompter,  love  the  spring : 
Wlio  was  injured  by  the  measured 
He — whose  love  esteemed  it  pleasure  T 

He — who  chose  the  suffering  1 

But  then  he  seemed  to  object  a  test  which  was  certainly 
false,  that  after  all  so  many  should  perish.  Hence,  to  reject 
Christ,  and  to  neglect  so  great  salvation,  and  to  live  in  the 
grand  crime  of  unbelief,  he  appeared  to  disregard  as  matters 
of  small  or  no  moment.  I  tried  to  demonstrate  that  a  judge 
could  punish  with  no  malice,  nay,  even  with  the  kindest 
sympathy  and  the  purest  wisdom,  administering  the  laws ; 
and  that  legislation  could  make  them  in  the  same  spirit  of 
wise  benevolence.  I  referred  him  to  the  rigid  justice  of  the 
Father  of  his  country  toward  Major  Andre  for  a  good  illus- 
tration, though  infinitely  small  in  the  comparison  ;  and  to  the 
fact  accredited  to  us,  that  Washington  wept,  in  the  bitterness 
of  his  soul,  to  do  it,  and  signed  his  death-warrant,  almost  ob- 
literating his  signature  with  his  tears  ;  and  then  inexorably 
proceeded  to  the  execution  of  the  law.  So  God  swears  by 
his  own  being  ;  saying,  As  I  live,  saith  the  Lord  God,  I  have 
no  pleasure  in  the  death  of  the  wicked  ;  but  that  the  wicked 
turn  from  his  way  and  live.  Turn  ye,  turn  ye,  from  your 
evil  ways  ;  for  why  tvill  ye  die,  0  house  of  Israel  ?  But 
what  if,  after  all,  the  sinner  dies  in  his  sins,  as  we  know  that 
frightful  multitudes  do  ?  Is  he  saved  ?  or,  is  that  solemn  as- 
severation of  the  only  ivise  God,  the  God  of  truth,  the  awful 
dirge  of  his  soul,  himself  the  victim  of  the  second  death  ? 

The  censured  lenity  of  his  immediate  predecessor,  Mr.  Mon- 
roe, in  extending  the  boon  of  executive  clemency  toward  so 
many  sentenced  pirates,  aflbrded  me  a  good  argument.  The 
newspapers  blamed  him  for  it,  all  over  the  country.  They 
said  the  law  is  good,  and  must  therefore  be  maintained. 
They  said  the  law  represents  the  interests  of  the  whole,  as 
well  as  each  part,  and  protects  them  too  ;  they  said  that  pi- 
racy made  the  interest  of  a  part  antagonistic  mutually  to  those 


DECEIVKKS  ALONE  DECEIVED.  207 

of  the  whole,  and  therefore  the  less  should  be  sacrificed  foi 
the  sake  of  the  greater.  That  is,  the  law  should  be  honored, 
and  the  pirates  should  be  hanged. 

But  these  principles,  founded  in  the  nature  and  relations  of 
all  moral  government,  are  fundamental  and  glorious  in  that 
which  is  the  only  perfect  moral  government  in  the  universe, 
the  government  of  God.  This  I  endeavored  to  enl'orce,  and 
commend  to  his  approbation.  We  have  violated  his  law,  and 
it  must  be  supported.  This  can  be  done  conceivably  in  either 
of  two  ways  only  ;  one,  by  execution  of  the  law,  and  our  con- 
sequent punishment  and  perdition  ;  the  other,  by  that  sacri- 
fice of  the  Son  of  God,  with  repentance  and  faith  in  him, 
which  makes  justice  honorable,  while  mercy  is  triumphant, 
which  magnificently  sustains  the  law  and  the  prerogatives  of 
the  lawgiver,  while  it  makes,  and  demonstrates,  and  com- 
mends the  way  oi'  grace  reigning  through  righteousness  to 
eternal  life  by  Jesus  Christ,  our  Lord. 

But  alas  I  I  could  make  seemingly  a  slight  impression 
only  on  the  mind  of  my  illustrious  friend.  In  one  of  our  epi- 
sodes, as  he  often  made  animadversions  on  the  clergy,  he  inti- 
mated that  some  of  the  ^eawlduX  magnates  deceived  them  occa- 
sionally with  a  kind  of  courtesy,  by  wholesale,  to  their  office 
and  to  them,  thinking  it  quite  enough  to  get  a  smiling  pledge 
of  their  good-will,  as  the  result  of  their  own  bland  concession 
to  religion  in  general,  or  to  its  forms,  and  its  claims,  and  its 
officials,  as  established  in  society.  I  replied  assentingly,  for  I 
had  often  observed,  as  others  have,  the  same  thing ;  but  added 
that  the  deceiver  there  was  alone  the  deceived,  as  an  ordina- 
ry result,  and  that  the  ministers  of  Christ,  those  that  are  his 
ministers,  both  know  more  of  such  men,  and  see  further  into 
their  ways,  their  Aviles,  their  tactics,  their  motives,  their  sins, 
and  their  retributions,  than  the  dotage  of  their  own  vanity 
or  their  shallowness  commonly  apprehends.  In  this  regard 
I  commended  Mr.  Adams  for  his  honesty  and  for  his  great 
superiority  to  that  low  and  mean  policy  to  which  we  were 


268  NEWPORT    AND    PROVIDENCE. 

referring — a  degradation  in  hypocrisy  of  which  there  lives 
not  the  man  on  earth,  I  judge,  that  would  accuse  him.  He 
utterly  scorned  all  such  duplicity,  all  such  servility  and  mor- 
al baseness. 

The  people  of  venerable  old  Newport,  that  city  of  exciting 
and  manly  memories,  reading  afar  the  presidential  signals  at 
the  mast-head  of  the  steamer,  crowded  to  the  wharf  as  we 
approached  it,  where  the  Fulton  Avas  to  touch.  They  re- 
ceived him  with  loud  patriotic  cheers,  and  every  eminence 
near  was  populous  with  gratified  spectators.  They  joyed 
spontaneously  to  see  and  to  greet  the  great  civic  father  of 
their  young  and  mighty  nation.  The  old  gentleman,  hat  in 
hand,  returned  the  pleasing  signals,  and,  like  a  plain  and  pa- 
triarchal citizen  as  he  was,  shook  hands  cheerfully  with  mul- 
titudes, who  crowded  perilous  on  board  to  enjoy  the  moment- 
ary gratification  and  valued  honor — though  its  memory  was 
not  so  transient.  Their  valedictory  cheering,  too,  was  tena- 
cious, oft-repeated,  and  long-continued,  till  it  died  in  the  dis- 
tance away,  still  visible,  and  heartily  returned,  even  when 
no  longer  audible  to  us  or  them.  At  Providence,  the  intelli- 
gent capital  of  their  gallant  and  enterprising  little  state,  our 
sail  terminated.  Crowds  of  their  busy  and  curious  popula- 
tion had  obeyed  some  concerted  signal,  and  were  waiting  to 
welcome  the  president  of  their  country.  Cheers  M^ere  all  in 
cordial  uproar  as  we  approached.  The  governor  and  his 
aids,  the  lieutenant  governor,  and  other  distinguished  citi- 
zens, occupied  the  front  ranks,  and  did  the  hospitable  honors 
to  their  distinguished  guest — only  that  he  was  too  transitory 
to  suit  their  notions  or  their  desires.  Soon  afterward,  the 
president's  coach  and  four  appeared  gallantly  in  sight,  which 
himself  and  others  of  us  having  occupied,  with  a  fine-looking 
and  quite  conscious  and  intelligent  driver  humoring  the  reins, 
we  were  wheeled  away  in  fine  style,  amid  the  enthusiastic 
and  stentorian  outbreaks  of  the   self-complacent  sovereign 


BRIEF    AND    TERMINAL    REFLECTIONS.  269 

people  ;  and  after  a  pleasant  drive  of  some  forty  miles,  we 
arrived  safe  in  the  evening  at  Boston. 

It  is  common,  we  are  told,  in  some  rural  parishes  in  New 
England,  for  the  pastor  regularly  to  occupy  the  morning  of 
the  Lord's  day  with  doctrinal  discussion,  establishing  certain 
favorite  or  orthodox  positions  ;  and  in  the  afternoon,  to  come 
to  the  IMPROVEMENT,  or  the  practical  reflections,  or  the 
SPIRITUAL  USES,  or  the  proper  inferences  from  the  subject. 
So,  from  such  interviews  with  such  a  personage,  one  might 
write  a  volume  of  instructive  commentary  and  speculative 
analysis.  But  possibly  the  facts  and  statements  which  must 
be  the  premises  of  all  such  philosophy  are  rather  to  be  viewed, 
in  the  present  instance,  as  more  instructive  and  more  valuable 
in  their  simple  appearance  to  the  reader,  leaving  his  own  mind 
to  its  own  workings  and  inductions  in  the  matter.  Often,  in- 
deed, has  the  recollection  of  what  is  here  narrated  recurred 
with  a  thrill  of  moral  interest  to  my  own  mind,  and  eminently 
has  it  been  suggestive,  and  perhaps  instructive  and  profitable. 
Truth  compels  me  to  add,  that  it  is  always  painful  too.  But 
what  men's  motives  are,  and  what  their  characters,  if  now 
ambiguous  or  mysterious,  will  soon  be  manifested  and  notori- 
ous to  all.  I  make  one  reflection,  that  the  religion  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  no  pensioner  on  the  favor  of  the  foot- 
stool. It  depends  on  no  man,  but  on  God  alone.  Every 
man  depends  on  it  passively,  if  not  actively  ;  it  depends  on 
God,  and  God  depends  on  himself;  so  that  religion  is  excel- 
lent, irrespective  of  majorities,  however  poor  in  worldly  state 
and  glory,  and  when  devoid  of  all  human  opinion  and  patron- 
age. Hence,  too,  the  imperfections  and  the  faults  of  profess- 
ing Christians  are  no  excuse  for  the  irreligious.  Thei-efore, 
Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Let  not  the  wise  man  glory  in  his 
wisdom,  neither  let  the  tnighty  inan  glory  in  his  ynight,  let 
not  the  rich  man  glory  in  his  riches;  but  let  him  that  glo- 
rieth  glory  i?i  this,  that  he  tinder sta7ideth  and  knoweth  me, 
that  I  am  the  Lord,  icho  exercise  loving-kindness,  judg- 


270  BIBLK    SOCIETY    ADDRESS. 

ment,  and  righteousness  in  the  earth  ;  for  in  these  things 
I  delight,  saith  the  Lord. — Jer.  9  :  23-24. 


Our  account  of  this  memorable  interview  is  now  conclud- 
ed. I  therefore  subjoin,  as  I  have  promised,  his  Bible  Socie- 
ty address,  pronounced  nearly  nineteen  yeai-s  after  ;  taken 
now  from  his  own  autograph,  identified  before  me,  and  show- 
hig,  as  a  chronometer  of  his  life,  the  proofs  of  age  in  its  for- 
mation of  letters,  and  of  the  difficulty  with  which  he  executed 
the  document,  then  so  far  advanced  in  his  seventy-seventh 
year. 

Address. 

Fellow-citizens  of  the  American  Bible  Society,  and  of 
this  Assembly,  —  In  taking  the  chair  awarded  to  me  as  the 
oldest  Vice-president  of  the  American  Bible  Society,  I  deem 
myself  fortunate  in  having  the  opportunity,  at  a  stage  of  a 
long  life  drawing  rapidly  to  its  close,  to  bear  at  this  place, 
the  capital  of  our  national  Union,  in  the  Hall  of  Representa- 
tion of  the  North  American  people,  in  the  chair  of  the  pre- 
siding officer  representing  that  whole  people,  the  personifica- 
tion of  this  great  and  mighty  nation,  to  bear  my  solemn  test- 
imonial of  reverence  and  gratitude  to  that  Book  of  books,  the 
Holy  Bible. 

Thirty-five  years  have  passed  away  since,  in  the  State 
House  at  Boston,  the  capital  of  my  native  commonwealth,  I 
became  a  member  of  the  Bible  Society  ;  and  although  I  have 
followed,  with  a  deep  interest,  their  continual  exertions  and 
the  various  fortunes  of  their  success  in  distributing  this  Book, 
I  think  I  have  never  been  able  to  attend  another  meeting  of 
the  society  from  that  time  to  this.  Since  that  time  one  gen- 
eration of  mankind  has  passed  away — another  has  arisen.  In 
the  midst  of  the  painful  and  perilous  conflicts  inseparable 
from  public  life,  and  on  the  eve  of  that  moment  when  the 
grave  shall  close  over  them  forever,  I  may  be  permitted  to 


EACH    GENKRATIOX    IMPROVrNG.  271 

indulge  the  pleasing  reflection  that,  having  been  taught  in 
childhood  the  unparalleled  blessings  of  the  Christian  gospel, 
in  the  maturity  of  manhood  I  associated  with  my  brethren  of 
that  age,  for  spreading  the  light  of  that  gospel  over  the  face 
of  the  earth,  by  the  simple  and  silent  process  of  placing  in 
the  hands  of  every  human  being  who  needed,  and  could  not 
otherwise  procure  it,  that  Book,  which  contains  the  duties, 
the  admonitions,  the  promises,  and  the  rewards  of  the  Chris- 
tian gospel.  It  is  a  soothing  consolation  to  my  last  hours, 
that,  having  so  long  since  associated  in  this  cause  with  the 
fathers,  I  still  find  myself  associated  in  it  with  the  sons  ;  that 
it  has  in  the  interval  been  perseveringly  and  unceasingly 
prosecuted  with  intense  ardor,  with  untiring  assiduity,  and 
with  animating  and  eminent  success.  In  contemplating  what 
may  be  termed  the  life  and  adventures  of  one  whole  genera- 
tion of  the  race  of  man,  the  only  member  of  the  animal  crea- 
tion susceptible  of  the  perception  of  good  and  evil,  of  virtue 
and  vice,  of  right  and  wrong,  there  are  in  this,  as  there  have 
been  in  all  former  ages,  observing  and  reflecting  men,  espe- 
cially in  the  decline  of  life,  prone  to  depreciate  the  moral  and 
physical  character  of  the  present  age,  and  to  glorify  the  past. 
Far  more  pleasing,  and  I  believe  more  correct,  is  the  con- 
clusion, that  the  race  of  man,  in  his  fallen  estate,  is  placed 
by  successive  generations  upon  earth  to  inijyrove  his  own 
condition  and  that  of  his  kind  ;  and  that  this  book  has  been 
furnished  him,  by  the  special  providence  of  his  Maker,  to  en- 
able him,  by  faith  in  his  Redeemer,  and  by  works  conforma- 
ble to  that  faith,  to  secure  his  salvation  in  a  future  world, 
and  to  promote  his  well-being  in  the  present.  If  this  be  true, 
the  improvement  of  successive  generations  of  men  in  their 
condition  upon  earth,  aird  their  preparation  for  eternity,  de- 
pends in  no  small  degree  in  the  diftusion  and  circulation  of 
this  volume  among  all  the  tribes  of  man  throughout  the  hab- 
itable globe  This  is  the  great  and  exclusive  object  for  which, 
in  the  last  generation,  this  society  was  instituted.     The  whole 


272  EXCELLENCE    OF    THE    SOCIETY. 

Book  had  then  existed  upward  of  eighteen  hundred  years ; 
and  wherever  it  had  penetrated  and  been  received,  it  had 
purified  and  exalted  the  character  of  man.  Reposing  upon 
three  fundamental  pillars,  the  unity  and  omnipotence  of  Gcd, 
the  Creator  and  Governor  of  all  worlds  ;  the  immortality  of 
the  human  soul,  and  its  responsibility  to  that  Creator  in  a 
future  world  for  all  the  deeds  done  in  the  present  ;  and  the 
system  of  morals,  embracing  in  one  precept  the  whole  duty 
of  man  upon  earth — Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  ivith 
all  thy  heart,  and  toith  all  thy  mind,  and  ivith  all  thy 
strength  ;  and  [thou  shalt  love]  thy  neighbor  as  thyself. 

The  Bible  carries  with  it  the  history  of  the  creation,  the 
fall  and  the  redemption  of  man  ;  and  discloses  to  him,  in  the 
infant  born  at  Bethlehem,  the  Legislator  and  Savior  of  the 
world.  The  faith  in  him  and  in  his  divine  mission  is  insep- 
arably connected  with  the  performance  of  his  will,  and  that 
will  is  all  comprised  in  the  song  of  the  angels  at  his  birth — 
Glory  to  God  iji  the  highest,  and  on  earth  j^eace,  good  tvill 
toward  men. 

In  whatever  region  of  the  earth,  in  whatever  condition  of 
the  human  being  this  blissful  sound  first  salutes  his  ears,  the 
depravities  of  his  nature  fall  before  it ;  the  selfish  and  the 
rancorous  passions  which  had  absorbed  his  soul  and  ruled  his 
conduct  under  the  impulses  of  hatred  and  revenge,  sink  within 
him  into  impotence  ;  he  bathes  in  the  waters  of  Jordan,  and 
rises  cleansed  from  his  leprosy,  in  the  freshness  and  vigor  of 
health,  and  the  purity  of  benevolence  and  mercy. 

Such  has  been  the  progress  of  the  gospel  wherever  the 
Bible  has  been  carried  and  suffered  to  be  read.  In  the  mys- 
terious providence  of  God,  its  influences  have  been  counter- 
acted by  the  spirit  of  evil  in  all  its  thousand  forms,  through- 
out a  long  succession  of  ages.  Its  advancement  has  been 
slow  ;  its  victories  desperately  contested  ;  its  triumphs  sub- 
jected to  cruel  vicissitudes  ;  its  war  against  the  world,  the 
flesh,  and  the  serpent,  a  perpetual,  never-ceasing  struggle. 


MILLENNIAL    FUTURE    OF    THE    WORLD.  273 

Yet  its  march  has  been  uniform  in  purifying  and  ennobling 
the  moral,  the  intellectual,  and  the  physical  condition  and 
character  of  man. 

To  circulate  and  distribute  among  great  multitudes  of  men, 
in  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  this  blessed  volume,  was  the 
purpose  for  which  this  society  was  instituted.  One  genera- 
tion of  mankind  has  since  passed  away. 

The  secretary*  of  the  society  is  now  present,  and  will  give 
an  account  of  their  labors,  their  success,  and  their  prospects. 
I  trust  they  will  prove  to  the  satisfaction  of  this  assembly 
that,  by  their  labors,  the  human  being  of  this  age  is,  on  the 
whole,  wiser,  better,  happier  than  the  human  being  of  the 
last. 

That  by  the  success  of  those  labors  they  will  be  cheered 
and  encouraged  to  perseverance  in  them,  by  the  emulation 
of  the  present  age  to  contribute  their  aid  to  the  progress  of 
human  wisdom,  virtue,  and  happiness,  from  age  to  age,  till 
that  consummation  of  human  felicity  promised  in  this  book, 
when — 

The  wolf,  also,  shall  dwell  icith  the  lamb,  and  the  leopard 
shall  lie  doivn  with  the  kid,  and  the  calf,  and  the  young 
lion,  and  the  fatling  together;  and  a  little  child  sJmll  lead 
them. 

*  Rev.  Dr.  Brigham. 
M  2 


VISIT    EXTRAORDINARY. 

TWO   PSEUDO-APOSTLES. 


TTiou  hast  tned  them  that  say  they  are  apottles,  and  are  not,  and  hast  found  them 
liars.— Rev.  2 :  2. 

For  without  are  dogs,  and  sorcerers,  and  whoremongers,  and  murderers,  and  idol- 
aters, and  WHOSOEVER  loveth  and  maketh  a  lie. — Rev.  22 :  15. 

For  such  are  false  apostles, deceitful  workers,  transforming  themselves  into  the  apos- 
tles of  Christ.  And  no  marvel ;  for  Satan  himself  is  transformed  into  an  angel  of 
light.— i  Cor.  n:\Z,li. 

For  there  shall  arise  false  Christs,  and  f rise  prophets,  and  shall  show  great  signs 
and  wonders  ;  insomuch  that,  if  it  luere  possible,  they  shall  deceive  the  very  elect. — 
Matt.  24  ■  24. 

BXe'jUTe  /!)}  Tt?  v/iias  ■n\avr)ijrj. — Matt.  24:  4. 

Ma.xima  pars  vatum,  pater  et  juvenes  patre  digni, 
Decipimur  specie  recti.        *  *  •       — jj^j.^ 


TWO  PSEUDO-APOSTLES. 


Religious  imposture  is,  in  its  proper  nature,  evil,  and  only 
evil,  and  tliat  continually.  It  is  huge  impiety  and  systematic 
sin,  organized  as  if  at  once  to  injure  man  and  offend  God.  In 
its  conception  and  origin  is  it  literally  infernal ;  in  its  term- 
ination, as  well  as  its  tendency,  unvitterably  and  desperately 
dreadful.  In  its  secular  relations,  to  a  great  extent,  the  genus 
of  imposture,  however  versatile  in  form  and  feature,  is  in  the 
main  popularly  known ;  hence  its  temporal  ravage  is  com- 
monly execrated  as  imposture.  People  like  not  to  be  duped 
and  cheated,  except  in  the  matter  of  their  souls.  Hence  coun- 
terfeiting, forgery,  getting  money  under  false  pretenses,  the 
perfidious  courting  or  deceiving  of  women,  quackery,  and  all 
kinds  of  professional  murder,  and  the  ways  multifarious  of 
mendacity,  for  the  sake  of  gain,  of  artful  and  specious  lying, 
"  to  get  an  honest  livelihood,"  and  other  false  methods  of  prac- 
ticing on  the  credulity  of  the  million — ever  having  men's  per- 
sons in  admiration,  because  of  advantage  ;  all  such  villainy 
becomes  suspected,  and  probably  detected  ;  as  certainly  it  is, 
then,  the  horror  of  the  nations  ;  the  object  of  legal  punition ; 
the  peril  of  principals,  accomplices,  and  accessories ;  as  well 
as  redounding  to  the  damage  or  the  sacrifice  of  its  victims. 
Touching  these  lower  relations,  men  are  ordinarily  severe, 
and  even  inexorable,  as  well  as  just  in  its  reprobation  ;  and 
mainly  the  penalty  of  the  law  of  the  land  is  exacted  to  the 
uttermost  farthing,  at  least  sentimentally — though  practi- 
cally its  due  execution  is  not  always  the  result.  In  some 
places,  however,  this  side  of  Oregon  and  California,  as  emi- 


278         IMPOSTURE  OF  VARIOUS  CLASSES. 

nently  there,  lynch-law  is  peculiarly  prompt  and  sure  ;  and 
not  always  without  "  method  in  its  madness,"  sometimes  ap- 
pearing qinxsi  just  and  exemplary,  if  not  quite  vindicated  at 
last,  in  the  summary  and  the  capital  vengeance  of  its  visita- 
tions. The  criminal  practitioner,  who  kills  a  patient  by  no- 
sology, or  for  the  want  of  it,  or  by  doses  infinitesimally  small, 
or  by  those  analogously  too  large,  or  by  corrupt  and  blunder- 
ing pharmacy,  as  a  matter  of  course,  suffers  for  it — rides  on  a 
rail,  instead  of  a  rail-road  ;  is  costumed  cap-a-pie,  unfashion- 
ably,  in  tar  and  feathers  ;  is  publicly  or  covertly  scourged 
with  ignominy ;  or,  it  may  be,  SAVung  immediately  from  the 
limb  of  a  tree,  into  that  dread  eternity  I  in  all  his  unfitness, 
unpardoned,  unprepared,  untaught, 

With  all  his  imperfections  on  his  head. 

Well,  how  much  better  or  more  innocent  than  secular  is 
religious  imposture?  when,  sparing  their  adorable  property, 
it  only  seduces  and  kills  the  souls  of  men ;  only  calumniates 
or  abolishes  the  glory  of  God ;  only  adulterates  the  gospel ; 
o?ily  poisons  the  waters  of  the  well  of  life ;  o?ihj  fumes  and 
struts,  in  its  dignified  short-sightedness,  for  a  moment,  at  the 
expense  of  its  votaries  ;  o>ily  gives  falsehood  the  precedence 
against  truth,  sorcery  substituting  for  inspiration,  and  foolery 
preferring  to  the  heavenly  and  incomparable  wisdom  ;  and 
so  ONLY  counteracts  Christ,  and  assists  the  strategy  of  Satan, 
in  his  own  proper  work,  as  a  manslayer  (avdpcjnoKTOVo^  rjv 
an'  apxT]^)  fro77i  the  beginning — oh  I  we  republicans,  loving 
freedom  so  intensely  and  so  immensely,  may  well  tolerate  the 
infelicity ;  we  politicians  and  office-hunters,  expectant  or  can- 
didating,  may  profitably  flatter  it — for  votes,  a  cheap  pur- 
chase— at  present ;  and  we  sycophants  may  court  it,  cun- 
ningly, whenever  it  radiates  prosperous,  and  glorious,  and  sat- 
isfactory in  its  alliances  with  wealth,  fame,  worldly  learning, 
party  success,  civic  station,  or  ofiScial  power  I  Short-sight- 
edness recks  not  of  the  day  of  judgment : 


THAT    ON    HAND    RELIGIOUS.  2T0 

Dies  iree !  dies  ilia,  solvet  saeclum  in  favilla. 

These  are  the  sentiments  and  the  principles  that  we — do 
not  hold.  How  God  esteems  it,  how  HE  regards  imposture 
of  every  kind — false  doctrine,  lying  preachers,  spurious  piety, 
superficial  man-traps,  vain  assumptions,  all  sorts  of  religion- 
izing charlatanry,  however  vaporing  in  his  name,  even  if  an 
angel  from  heaven  were  its  patron  or  its  propugnator,  his 
word  copiously  informs  us.  See  the  whole  Bible  ;  especially 
Deut.  13  :  1-5  ;  18  :  20-22  ;  29  :  18-28.  Gal.  1  :  6-9  ;  3  : 
1.     Rev.  21  :  27. 

The  specimen  now  to  be  exhibited  is,  in  several  of  its  re- 
lations and  aspects,  sufficiently  vulgar  and  squalid  ;  still  it  is 
reality.  It  is  a  specimen.  It  actually  occurred.  It  shows 
partially  the  way,  or,  rather,  one  of  the  changeable  ways,  in 
which,  with  occasional  success,  and  resulting  malady,  its  ser- 
pent-hissing or  its  serpent-trailing  orgies  are  devotionally  en- 
acted, to  beguile  multitudes,  and  deceive,  if  it  were  possible, 
the  very  elect.  If  the  manner  of  reception  and  treatment  to 
which  two  of  its  infatuated  angels,  or  more  modest  apostles, 
were  subjected,  on  a  special  occasion,  uncomfortably,  may  be 
useful  to  any  one  in  similar  condition,  or  for  general  instruc- 
tion and  warning,  I  shall  be  satisfied.  In  some  directions, 
not  quite  Utopian  or  imaginary,  a  few  seasonable  suggestions 
or  hints  may  be  conveyed  as  to  the  erect  and  honest  skepti- 
cism with  which  Christian  faith  itself  does,  and  human  safe- 
ty must,  regard  all  such  assumptions,  from  the  manipulations 
of  the  puseyite  to  the  scoundrel  miracles  of  Jesuitism  ;  from 
the  diabolical  religion  of  the  Mormons  to  the  specious  pseudo- 
philosophy  of  the  pantheist ;  from  the  ignorant  ventures  of 
Miller's  millennarian  chronology,  making  ad  diem  appoint- 
ments with  Heaven,  and  repeating  them  by  various  consider- 
ate adjournments,  all  of  which  Heaven  inexorably  scorned,  to 
the  madcaps  of  Irving,  with  their  "unknown  tongues;"  or 
to  the  philosophico-sophistical  day-dreams  of  a  cracked  Swed- 
ish nobleman,  and  his  triple  sense  of  Scripture,  interpreted  by 


280  A    VISIT    OF    ITS    OWN    SORT. 

"correspondences;"  or  to  the  sottish  impudence  of  the  Uni- 
versalist ;  or,  to  the  serene,  religious  self-complacency,  and 
learned  propagand  excecation  of  the  modern  Socinian,  deceit- 
fully corrupting  his  word  and  hating  its  adorable  Author ;  or 
to  any  other  furtive  system  of  delusion,  ancient  or  modern, 
vulgar  or  refined,  by  which  the  devil  and  his  angels  prose- 
cute their  own  Avork,  in  this  world  of  sin  and  wickedness. 

A  man  who  truly  knows  Christianity  finds  little  perplexity 
in  knowing  the  vanity  and  lies  of  all  its  rivals,  or  would-be 
substitutes,  or  self-lauded  improvements  on  its  known  iden- 
tity. May  God  teach  us  all  to  discriminate  in  favor  of  tJie 
truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  and  of  that  alone  I  I  proceed  to  the 
narration  ;  may  it  be  to  the  glory  of  the  God  of  truth  I 

It  was  a  day  much  of  its  own  class,  distinguished  for  ter- 
rible heat — the  hottest  of  hot  days  of  summer  in  this  latitude  ; 
and  one  of  the  rare  and  oppressively  hot  days  that  make  peo- 
ple talk,  and  newspapers  show  philosophical  and  wise  ;  as  all 
remember  "the  three  hot  days"  of  the  season,  that  the  por- 
tentous visit  occurred.  Whether  or  not  they  deliberately  chose 
such  a  day,  though  I  incline  to  doubt,  is  not  certain.  It  might 
possibly  have  suited  their  mission,  their  plan,  or  their  conven- 
ience, as  so  hot ;  no  matter.  They  came  then,  unheralded, 
uulmown,  unintroduced,  unsanctioned  by  any  practicable  au- 
thority or  evidence. 

It  was  the  Lord's  day,  and  near  the  hour  of  worship,  in 
the  afternoon,  some  seven  years  since,  that  the  event  occurred 
which  I  am  now  to  narrate.  The  bell  was  tolling,  and  I  was 
descending  from  my  study,  contiguous,  to  enter  the  pulpit, 
and  in  the  act  of  locking  the  door,  while  several  of  my  peo- 
ple were  passing  near  me  into  the  church,  and  I  recognized 
no  others,  when  a  strange  voice  from  behind  arrested  my  at- 
tention, in  tones  direct  and  earnest,  as  well  as  measured  and 
articulate. 

2.  Is  this  Dr.  Cox? 

1.  It  is,  sir,  at  your  service. 


DIRECT    AND    AFFECTIONATE.  281 

2.  Sir,  I  am  glad  to  see  you.  Dr.  Cox,  we  have  heard  of 
you,  have  come  to  pay  you  a  religious  visit,  and  hope  it  will 
suit  you  to  afibrd  us  an  opportunity. 

1.  Gentlemen,  you  are  entire  strangers  to  me,  and  your 
request  is  at  present  impracticable.  I  should  like,  however, 
to  know  who  you  are. 

2.  Oh  I  we  are  your  friends,  and  we  wish  to  speak  with 
you  about  the  kingdom  and  the  way  of  God. 

1.  Well,  gentlemen,  is  it  your  mission  to  learn  or  to  teach 
on  this  occasion  1 

2.  "Why,  doctor,  we  know  well  your  character,  and  have  a 
very  great  esteem  of  you.  You  are  Brother  Cox,  a  man  of 
God,  a  friend  of  truth,  a  lover  of  righteousness,  and  a  preach- 
er of  the  gospel ;  and  as  for  our  object,  we  will  explain  it 
to  you,  as  soon  as  opportunity  ofi'ers. 

1.  It  is  now  the  hour  of  service,  and  I  must  leave  you. 
If,  however,  you  will  wait  till  after  it,  and  my  strength  may 
allow,  I  will  receive  you  in  the  study  immediately — although 
the  heat  is  so  oppressive  that  one  feels  more  like  dissolution 
than  exertion  at  such  a  season. 

2.  Well,  what  shall  we  do  in  the  mean  time  ? 

1.  Go  into  the  house  of  God,  and  worship  HIM. 

2.  But  we  are  strangers,  and  have  no  seats. 

1.  No  matter.  I  will  show  you  seats,  gentlemen.  Please 
proceed. 

They  were  soon  seated,  and  the  service  was  performed  in 
due  order.  With  copious  perspiration  and  exhausting  effort, 
even  when  self-controlled  and  calm,  on  that  day  of  memora- 
ble and  inclement  heat,  I  went  through  my  public  duties  and 
returned.  The  study  door  was  scarcely  opened,  before  the 
two  visitors,  each  "  steady  to  his  purpose,"  were  at  my  elbow  ; 
when,  ascending,  we  were  soon  together  seated  in  the  study. 
I  sat  in  my  ordinary  chair,  with  a  sliding  leaf  for  writing 
closed  before  me,  and  my  manual  Greek  Testament  lying  on 
it  open,  as  I  had  left  it. 


282  DESCRirTION    OF    THE    TWO. 

The  two  strangers,  though  united  in  their  sympathy,  and 
their  aim,  and  their  work,  seemed  very  dissimilar  in  their  cast 
of  character.  The  one  that  had  done  mainly  all  the  talking, 
quite  the  Mercury  of  the  mission,  was  rather  tall,  of  a  plain 
and  open  countenance,  apparently  sincere,  very  loquacious, 
religiously  coniident,  and  rather  fraternally  sociable,  and  foi'- 
ward,  and  exacting,  as  well  as  seemingly  assured  and  remark- 
ably afiectionate  toward  his  "  Brother  Cox."  The  other,  rath- 
er below  medium  size,  of  dark  complexion  and  cunning  eye, 
seemed  watching  his  opportunity  with  greater  sagacity  and 
prudence  of  reserve,  as  the  consular  pundit  of  the  enterprise, 
and  as  ready  to  bring  relief  and  succor  to  rear  or  flank  in  the 
engagement.  He  had  said  little,  and  that  only  in  the  way 
of  confirmation  or  acquiescence,  as  he  followed  the  lead  of 
his  obtrusive  and  venturous  colleague.  They  were,  person- 
ally, as  strange  to  me  as  their  manner  was  singular  and  their 
business  a  mysterj'.  I  had  previously  no  knowledge  of  them 
whatever,  and  no  clue  at  all  beyond  the  present  scene  to 
guide  me  in  it,  not  knowing  even  their  names ;  and  having 
no  friend  or  w^itness,  except  the  omniscient  ONE,  to  corre- 
spond with  me,  I  felt  in  a  strange  predicament ;  tried,  but 
not  daunted  in  the  least ;  perplexed,  but  not  in  despair  ;  de- 
termined to  keep  my  propriety,  and  stand  by  the  principles 
of  everlasting  truth  and  rectitude.  It  was  plain  that  their 
object  and  their  views  were  odd  and  queer,  but  I  had  no  sus- 
picion or  imagination  of  their  sect,  their  principles,  or  their 
specific  design. 

As  to  the  way  in  which  all  such  pretensions  should  be  met, 
and  they  are  always  occurring,  as  they  have  occurred  contin- 
ually, though  in  ever-varj'ing  forms,  in  every  age,  before  the 
witch  of  Endor,  or  Balaam  the  son  of  Beor,  or  the  antedilu- 
vian impostors  of  Cain's  progeny  were  born,  I  mean,  that  they 
are  all  Satanic,  and  so  of  very  respectable  antiquity  ;  and  as 
to  the  way  of  meeting  them  and  treating  them,  it  is  proba- 
ble that  a  calm  rigidity,  which  shows  them  all  due  polite- 


NOT  PROFOUNDLY  LEARNED.  288 

iicss,  yet  stands  ever  on — the  right  and  the  claim  of  evi- 
dence, demanding  full  proof  of  their  assumptions,  accrediting 
nothing  without  it,  demanding  it  at  the  outset,  and  before 
any  action  or  negotiation  is  begun,  and  remembering,  and 
causing  them  not  to  forget,  however  convenient  and  desired, 
that  the  burden  of  proof,  the  onus  probandi,  of  the  matter  is, 
by  their  own  act,  resting  wholly  on  themselves,  as  their 
OWN,  ANt)  theirs  ONLY.  They  make  the  category,  which  they 
ought  immediately  to  prove.  They  voluntarily  take  the  po- 
sition which  they  are  required,  in  all  reason  and  righteous- 
ness, to  demonstrate  and  establish.  And  if  they  dare  to  in- 
sult their  fellow-creatures  so  impudently  and  so  wantonly,  to 
say  nothing  of  their  enormous  impiety  and  sacrilege  against 
God,  what  is  the  proverbial  shrewdness  and  common  sense 
of  Americans  worth,  if  they  can  not  resist  their  claims,  when 
they  have  not,  and  can  not  have,  proved  them  ?  We  only 
add,  let  all  Americans  who  love  their  country,  and  who  de- 
test imposture,  thinking  there  is  quite  enough  of  it  in  Europe, 
and  that  we  want  something  better  in  the  United  States,  in 
Church  and  in  State,  in  politics  and  in  religion ;  let  all  Amer- 
icans agree,  to  frown  with  indignation  on  all  claims  that  can 
not  be  proved,  that  are  plainly  imposture  and  falsehood,  be- 
lieving here  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  NOTiiiNG 
BUT  the  truth — and  the  truth  itself,  only  as  proved  by  ra- 
tional evidence  to  be  divine,  and  so  worthy  of  all  human  con- 
fidence. 

They  appeared  in  respectable  attire,  as  common  citizens 
of  the  middle  class  of  society.  Their  manners  were  rather 
respectful  and  correct,  but  not  polished  ;  and  their  use  of  rough 
phrases,  and  occasionally  of  bad  grammar,  graduated  them 
to  their  place  on  an  intellectual  scale  :  Ut  ad  primum  in  ar- 
tibus  gradum,  scilicet,  Baccalaureatus,  non  adhuc  admissi. 
Still,  their  manner  indicated  negotiation,  and  seemed  to  pre- 
ominate  some  earnest  and  well  considered  result.  Hence  I 
said, 


284  LATTER-DAY    SAINTS,  SELF-STYLED. 

1.  Well,  gentlemen,  before  we  begin  our  religious  conA^er- 
sation,  let  us  settle  some  requisite  preliminaries.  I  should 
like  to  know  who  you  are. 

2.  Never  mind  that  now.  We  know  you,  and  you  will 
know  us  as  we  proceed,  and  we  hope  rejoice  in  the  end. 

1.  That,  gentlemen,  Avill  not  suit  me.  Let  all  things  be 
done  decently  and  in  oider.  You  are  utter  strangers.  You 
have  no  introduction.  We  are  not  on  a:  par,  as  you  know 
me  so  well,  and  I  know  you  not  at  all.  I  must  insist  on 
the  first  thing  in  the  first  place.  If  you  are  religious,  are 
you  Christians  ?  or  what  ? 

2.  Yes,  sir,  Christians — that  we  are. 

1.  Well,  to  what  denomination  do  you  appertain? 

2.  Why,  sir — no  matter.  We  are  Christians  ;  but  if  you 
wish  to  know,  we  are  Latter-day  Saints. 

1.  Indeed  I  And  what  means  that  designation?  The 
Pope,  by  the  word  saint,  means  one  thing ;  the  Bible,  quite 
another  ;  and  infidels  use  it  only  in  scorn.  I  am  not  aware 
that  in  the  latter  day  the  saints  are  to  be  normally  different 
from  what  they  were  before  the  flood.  A  sincere  Christian, 
a  sound  believer,  a  lover  of  Christ,  his  own  genuine  disciple, 
a  true  worshiper  in  any  age,  is  a  saint  in  the  language  and 
style  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  the  alternative  is,  to  be  his  en- 
emy, a  reprobate,  an  heir  of  perdition. 

2.  You  must  have  heard  of  the  Latter-day  Saints,  sir  ? 

1 .  Possibly  ;  but  I  have  no  recollection  that  is  definite  re- 
specting them.     I  hear  occasionally  of  many  strange  things. 


I  forgot,  or  had  never  learned,  that  this  is  the  favorite  cant 
of  the  Mormons.  Those  squalid  heretics  call  themselves 
"  the  saints  of  the  latter  day."  It  never  occurred  to  me  till 
after  the  interview,  however ;  and  for  the  moment  I  let  it 
pass  at  that. 


2.  Yes,  that  is  what  we  are,  and  all  the  world  will  be  soon. 


THEIR    MISSION FROM    WHOM  ?  285 

1.  But  who  sent  you,  gentlemen,  to  me  ?  and  what,  pre- 
cisely, is  the  nature  of  your  errand  ? 

2.  We  come  in  the  spirit  and  the  power  of  the  apostles  of 
Christ. 

1.  Stay  I  let  me  understand  you  exactly.  Do  you  mean 
that  you  come  endowed  and  accredited  from  God  in  the  same 
way,  degree,  and  manner  as  the  apostles  of  Christ  ?  Is  this 
your  position  and  your  designation,  gentlemen  ? 

2.  Certainly,  sir  ;  that  is  the  way  we  come  from  God  to 
you.  He  sent  us,  and  ivc  bri/ig  you  glad  tidings  of  great 
joy.  You,  Brother  Cox,  are  to  be  blessed  to  know  these 
things  ;  and  if  you  are  only  faithful,  you  will  become  great 
and  honorable  in  the  kingdom  of  the  saints. 

3.  Yes,  doctor.  That  is  why  we  come  from  God  to  see 
you  to-day. 

1.  Not  too  fast,  gentlemen.  Your  proposals  are  sufficient- 
ly flattering,  I  own  ;  but  in  such  a  serious  matter  1  must 
both  see  and  feel  my  way.  Festina  lente  ;  that  is,  make 
haste  slowly,  see  and  feel  your  way.  We  must  have  rational 
evidence,  and  walk  by  it. 

3.  Yes,  that  is  right.  Take  time,  and  you  will  see  it  all, 
after  a  while.     We  must  wait  patiently  on  the  Lord. 


Here  they  held  some  communings  with  each  other,  some- 
times intelligible,  sometimes  ambiguous  ;  from  which  I  gath- 
ered that,  by  revelation,  such  as  it  was,  they  had  ascertained 
with  religious,  that  is,  fanatical  infallibility,  that  I  was  to 
become  a  Mormon,  and  even  to  figure  in  the  promotions  and 
the  honors  of  their  official  eminences  ;  that  all  this  was  fully 
predestinated  by  somebody,  and  clearly  announced  to  them 
from  some  source  ;  and  that  my  effectual  calling  was  to  be 
superinduced  through  their  own  ministry,  and  exactly  on  the 
present  occasion.  In  the  mean  time,  I  considered  them  as 
men  lunatic  or  drunk,  and  so  to  be  wakefully  regarded  as  so 
deluded  and  so  venturous  ;  with  questions  of  curious  concern 


286  APOSTLES    TWELVE    ONLY. 

occurring  in  my  thoughts  ;  though  less  determined  to  say 
any  thing  conclusive,  or  definite,  or  manifestive  before  the 
time.  I  wished  to  sec  them  enjoy  the  dilemma  they  had 
made  for  themselves,  and  work  the  problem  they  had  un- 
dertaken to  some  regular  result ;  trustful  that  God  would 
keep  me  from  their  influence  and  their  design.  Their  faith 
was  probably  tried  in  the  interview,  as  I  must  have  seemed 
rather  an  untoward  subject  from  the  first.  They  seemed  to 
try  in  different  ways  to  engage  my  feelings  and  depose  my 
judgment,  that,  so  liquefied,  I  might  flow  with  them.  But  in 
some  way,  I  early  saw  through  them.  These  successors  of 
the  apostles,  without  all  proof  of  their  commission  or  their 
mission,  stood,  in  my  estimation,  self-condemned  and  self-re- 
futed, with  some  others  of  another  species,  but  the  same 
genus  pi-ecisely,  iii  their  solemn  averment  or  assumption  of 
a  thing  absurd  and  impossible.  The  apostles,  as  such,  had 
no  successors — could  have  none.  The  pretension  is  sorcery 
and  abomination,  though  here  less  guilty,  in  these  base-born 
and  low-bred  ignoramuses,  than  in  some  other  and  better 
educated  usurpers  of  the  monstrous  title.  They,  indeed,  suc- 
cessors of  the  apostles  of  God,  who,  as  twelve,  are  to  occupy 
twelve  thrones  in  the  celestial  kingdom,  judging  the  tM'elve 
tribes  of  Israel,  and  not  each  pseudo,  with  one  for  himself, 
making  an  aggregate  of  myriads  ;  they,  their  successors,  who 
possess  no  one  quality  that  distinguished  or  constituted  an 
apostle  of  Christ  in  the  apostolic  age  ;  they,  to  have  their 
assumptions  accredited  by  us  as  additional  apostles,  super- 
numerary moderns,  adscititious  and  spurious,  such  as  Apos- 
tle Hildebrand,  Apostle  Bonner,  Apostle  Talleyrand,  Apostle 
Hughes  in  New  York,  and  Apostle  Doane  in  Burlington  I  I 
wonder  that  such  revolting  impudence  can  win  the  confi- 
dence, in  this  country,  of  one  American  that  repudiates  the 
more  respectable  whim  and  usurpation  of  the  divine  right  of 
kings  I     But  to  our  story. 

1.   Your  quality  and  claims,  gentlemen,  as  you  must  be 


pur.,sr,.\T   ci.Ai.MH   iiii;ii    r,.\oi:r;ii.  287 

aware,  are  superlatively  high.     If  I  comprehend  them,  you 
are  every  way  the  peers  ofthe  apostles  of  Christ. 

2,3.  Yes,  sir.  He  sent  us,  and  we  serve  him  just  as  they 
did. 

1 .  Then  you  can  discern  spirits,  speak  with  tongues,  write 
inspiration,  heal  the  sick,  expel  demons,  and  raise  the  dead, 
as  well  as  work  other  miracles  in  other  ways,  as  due  occasion 
offers  ? 

2.  3.  Yes,  we  can.  [Spoken  with  grave  and  solemn  tones 
and  countenances.] 

1 .  Very  well,  so  far  I  I  seem  now  to  understand  you,  gen- 
tlemen. The  next  thing  in  order,  then,  is — proof.  You  will 
please  to  produce  your  credentials.  If  you  come  from  God, 
as  his  ambassadors,  and  on  such  a  mission,  I  am  glad  to  see 
you  ;  and  only  want  justly  the  signs  of  an  apostle — some  just 
demonstration  from  HIM  that  sent  you,  and  I  cordially  sur- 
render to  your  sway. 

Both  looked  queer  at  me,  and  at  each  other. 

3.  You  ought  not  to  dictate,  sir ;  but  take  what  comes 
from  God. 

1.  Exactly  so.  I  am  not  particular  as  to  the  kind  or  form 
of  evidence  ;  but  have  seen  none  at  all,  as  yet.  I  am  wait- 
ing, not  dictating ;  and  we  are  all,  it  seems,  this  hot  day,  in 
a  full  perspiration  with  the  matter.  Here  happens  to  be  the 
Greek  Testament — the  blessed  original  text  of  the  inspired 
oracles  of  the  living  God,  who  searches  all  hearts.  That  will 
be  gentle  and  easy,  and  very  proper  as  a  test.  Will  you,  sir, 
take  it  and  read  a  chapter,  or  six  verses,  nay,  one  verse,  aloud, 
and  give  us  the  sense  of  it  ? 

2.  [Declining,  and  looking  at  the  other.]  You  dictate,  sir, 
in  demanding  evidence,  like  that  evil  and  adulterous  gen- 
eration of  which  you  read  in  the  pulpit,  this  afternoon,  seek- 
ing for  a  sign,  and  there  shall  no  sig}i  be  given  it,  as  Christ 
says. 

1.  There  is  no  likeness  or  analogy  between  the  two  cases. 


288  TESTIMONIALS    aUITE    ILLEGIBLE. 

He  had  wrought  miracles,  and  they  knew  it  and  believed  not, 
and  then  asked  for  more  in  vain.     Have  you  wrought  any  ? 

2.  Yes,  sir,  we  wrought  some  great  ones  in  New  York  last 
week,  as  the  people  know. 

1.  Any  in  Brooklyn  ?  or  is  your  power  limited  to  the  sen- 
ior city  ?     If  so,  you  should  limit  yourselves  there,  probably. 

3.  Why  then  ask  for  more?  Only  believe:  all  things 
are  possible  to  him  that  bclieveth.     Have  faith — 

1.  That  seems  to  me,  sir,  an  impious  perversion  of  the  word 
of  God,  made  by  a  sui  generis  saint  of  the  Latter  Day.  Are 
you  yet  to  learn  that  Christianity  is  throughout  a  religion  of 
evidence,  and,  as  such,  the  only  one  in  the  world "?  It  says, 
Prove  all  things  ;  hold  fast  tlmt  tvhich  is  good.  It  says. 
Beloved,  believe  7iot  every  spirit,  but  try  the  spirits  wheth- 
er they  are  of  God;  bj;cause  many  false  prophets  are  gone 
out  into  the  world.  It  warns  us  against  antichrist,  and 
declares  that  even  now  are  there  many  antichrists.  If  you 
have  no  evidence,  no  credentials,  then,  where — then,  what 
are  you  ?  Your  pretentions  surely  require  support.  Are 
you,  then,  truly  the  apostles  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ?  or 
do  you  really  take  me  for  one  who,  on  such  conditions,  can 
entertain  your  mission,  and  recognize  you  according  to  your 
assumptions  ?  If,  in  this  high  profession  you  make,  you  are 
either  deliberately  in  practice  of  a  cheat,  or  are  yourselves 
infatuated  and  deceived,  sirs,  it  is  no  small  affair  of  mischief 
that  ye  do.  You  are  sinning  against  God,  who  loves  the  truth, 
and  is  himself  the  mo.st  sincere  person  that  ever  spoke,  and 
the  most  honest  being  in  the  universe.  He  has  no  partner- 
ship Avith  ignorance,  or  falsehood,  or  fraud ;  and  you  may 
need  to  remember  that  you  have  to  do  with  One  who  can  not 
be  deceived,  and  who  will  not  be  mocked.  I  shall  not  stir 
another  step  in  this  business  till  I  see  the  evidence  on  which 
you  rely,  as  self-vaunted  envoys  extraordinary,  and  ministers 
plenipotentiary  from  the  court  of  the  King  of  kings,  to  sustain 
your  apostolicity  and  vindicate  your  claims.     Here,  then,  I 


PROOF    I\     ANY    WAY    KKHrKCn.  289 

take  my  stand,  and  call  foi*  evidence,  for  proof.      How  am  I 
to  know,  gentlemen,  that  you  are  not  impostors  ? 

3.  You  had  belter  take  care,  sir,  what  you  say.  The  evi- 
dence may  come  sooner  than  you  desire,  and  as  you  do  not 
expect,  and  what  you  will  not  relish,  sure  enough  I  I  would 
just  warn  you  to  bewai-e  I 

1.  You  mean  that  the  evidence  may  surprise  me,  coming 
in  the  way  and  style  of  some  divine  judgment? 

3.  Yes,  sir,  I  do  ;  and  I  hereby  warn  you  against  it. 

2.  Oh  !  if  it  should  come  now,  what  would  become — 

1.  Very  well,  gentlemen,  I  am  ready,  and  quite  conteat. 
Send  a  good  rousing  judgment  along — a  little  touch  of  earth- 
quake, some  thunder  and  lightning,  cholera  morbus,  palsy, 
volcano,  avalanche,  nightmare,  gout,  ship-fever,  neuralgia,  or 
any  thing  else  you  please ;  yes,  little  or  much  of  it,  gentle- 
men, and  the  sooner  the  better,  as  I  am  ready,  if  you  are, 
and  quite  disposed  to  be  accommodating. 

3.  Sir,  are  you  forgetting  yourself  all  the  time  ? 

1.  Not  at  all ;  I  am  only  remembering  you.  Let  us  have 
some  of  the  evidence.  Come  I  your  testimonials,  your  seals, 
your  signs,  gentlemen. 

2.  Why,  I  never  saw  or  heard  such  a  man — as  you  I 

1.  Nor  I  ever  read  or  conceived  before  of  such  men  or  such 
apostles — exactly,  as  are  j'ou. 


Here  our  apostles  began  to  be  restive.  They  looked  at 
each  other  in  perplexed  significancy,  as  if  their  mitres  were 
a  little  loose  ;  as  if  desiring  some  concert  ;  as  if  meditating 
some  change  of  tactics.  The  thought  crossed  my  mind  of 
personal  insecurity.  I  was  alone  with  them.  The  sexton 
had  locked  the  doors  and  left  the  premises.  My  study  was 
almost  in  the  centre  of  a  square,  and  equidistant  from  each  of 
four  streets.  The  nature  of  fanaticism,  or  spiritual  delusion, 
was  not  to  me  a  novelty,  either  in  books  or  in  living  scenes. 
Its  malignity,  its  sublimated  mania,  its  occasional  excursions 

N 


290         THEY  GET  AXGRY  IN  ARGUMENT. 

and  outrage,  its  serene  confidence,  its  specious  arrogance,  its 
superiority  to  truth  and  soberfiess,  I  had  witnessed  in  other 
examples.  It  is  ever  wiser  in  its  own  eyes  than  seven  men 
who  can  roider  a  reason.  But  I  thought  there  was  no  rea- 
son to  fear  them  at  all  ;  reason  enough  for  conduct  and  decis- 
ion. Hence  I  was  calm,  and  not  at  all  afraid  on  my  own 
ground,  locally,  and  morally  ;  and  if  they  understood  it  not, 
so  much  the  better  for  me.  My  plan  was  to  be  tranquil 
and  bold,  if  not  aggressive,  sticking  to  principles.  They  had 
shown  great  assurance  of  success  in  their  mission;  "surer  to 
prosper  than  prosperity  could  have  assured  them ;"  though 
now  nonplused,  badly  committed  for  their  inspiration,  and  in- 
clined to  denounce  and  rave.     Hence,  said  he, 

2.  I  fear  you  are  a  hardened  old — 

3.  Yes,  and  blinded,  too,  with  darkness. 

1.  Why,  surely  there  seems  to  be  considerable  darkness  in 
my  study — more  than  common  this  alternoon  ;  and  I  wish 
there  were  more  air,  since  light  seems  so  scarce  and  heat  so 
oppressive  in  it. 

3.  Sir,  to  tell  you  plainly,  you  are  a  hardened  man  and  a 
hypocrite — given  up — reprobate. 

1.  Why  ?  Because  I  ask  and  wait  for  evidence,  and  you 
have  given  me  not  a  particle  ?  You  were  great  strangers, 
gentlemen  ;  but  I  seem  to  be  getting  acquainted  with  you, 
hy  degrees,  as  Latter-day  Saints,  apostles,  and  so  forth.  Real- 
ly, my  friends,  or  my  foes,  whatever  you  are,  it  is  plain  that 
your  navigation  is  all  at  sea,  and  all  a  mistake  at  that. 

2.  Don't  you  know  what  shall  become  of  him  that  believ- 
eth  not  ?     Why,  you  have  no  faith — 

1.  With  claims  higher  than  apostolic,  only  quite  strange 
and  audacious,  if  not  insane,  you  demand  my  faith  in  them, 
without  evidence  and  against  evidence  ;  and  because  I  be- 
lieve not  that — 

3.  Yes,  you  are  no  believer,  but — 

1.  Think,  sirs;  no  mountebank,  harlequin,  heretic,  or  de- 


INSPIRATION    VS.   ITSELF.  291 

mon  could  make  claims  of  prouder  altitude  than  yours  ;  and, 
they,  one  and  all,  could  furnish  quite  as  much,  1  should  say 
possibly  rather  more,  proof  of  them  than  you  have  yet  even 
attempted  or  can  possibly  afibrd.  Poor  men  I  poor  sinners  I 
1  fear  you  know  neither  God  nor  yourselves,  nor  the  reward 
that  awaits  you  in  the  future  world. 

2.  Oh,  how  dark — dark — dark  you  are  I 

3.  Yes,  you  are  a  hypocrite,  a  liar,  sir  ;  and  I  know — 

1.  Stay  just  a  moment.  Pray,  be  quite  calm.  I  can  re- 
fute all  that  instantly  on  the  authority  of  two  apostles.  In- 
stead of  liar,  hypocrite,  reprobate,  I  am,  you  remember, 
"  Brother  Cox,  a  man  of  God,  a  friend  of  truth,  a  lover  of 
righteousness,  and  a  preacher  of  the  gospel."  This  is  a  great 
honor — quite  a  high  and  a  memorable  endorsement.  It  is,  at 
least,  the  exalted  character  I  had  a  few  hours  since.  If  I 
have  it  not  yet,  but  have  grown  so  bad  all  at  once,  as  you 
now  denounce  me,  it  must  be  because  I  have  been  some  time 
in  your  company.     The  ancients  say 

Nemo  repente  turpissimus. 
That  is,  no  man  can  get  astray 
From  rectitude's  habitual  way- 
All  in  one  moment,  hour,  or  day. 

But  your  recorded  encomium,  gentlemen,  I  shall  remem- 
ber, as  I  pray  you  not  to  forget  it.  Think  what  apostolic 
authority  !  what  rich  commendation  I  what  a  glorious  epi- 
taph !  Such  honor  never  happened  to  me  before.  Few 
things  in  this  world  equal  it.  Some  of  your  initiated  disci- 
ples, real  Latter-day  Saints,  might  be  lifted  iq)  icith  it  above 
measure,  might  be  spiritually  proud — though  I  shall  endeavor 
to  keep  some  humility  for  all.  It  seems  to  me,  gentlemen, 
that  canonization  itself  from  the  Pope  of  Rome — yes,  canon- 
ization itself,  IS  inferior — not  even  this  incomprehensible  hon- 
or, with  the  entail  of  purgatory  as  a  rare  mercy  and  a  pon- 
tiff's privilege,  for  about  two  thousand  years  only,  can  surpass, 
in  my  estimation,  the  apostolic  honors  you — 


292  Annurr  dismissfon. 

2.  Sir,  I  have  no  respect  or  care  for  you. 

1 .  Queer  apostles  these,  to  be  so  mistaken  in  their  inspi- 
ration— for  once  I 

3.  Yes,  sir  ;  hypocrite  liardencd — 

1 .  Silence,  gentlemen.  You  are  now  going  rather  too  far. 
There  seems  no  immediate  prospect  of  my  becoming  a  Lat- 
ter-day saint,  you  perceive.  It  is  the  Lord's  day,  and  I  wish 
not  to  break  it.  I  have  read  of  the  like  before.  You  are  just 
such  apostles  proved  as  are  described  in  Rev.  2:2;  and  in 
ii.  Cor.  11  :  12-15.  Go,  read  and  ponder  your  character 
and  your  doom.  You  arc  ba.se  and  horrible  impostors.  It  is 
very  plain  who  sent  you,  and  how  equally  deceived  and  crim- 
inal you  are  in  your  inspired  assurance  ;  that  I  was  to  be 
your  convert  and  your  champion,  and  as  such  promoted  in 
your  kingdom,  and  among  your  kind  of  saints.  I  have  done  I 
You  need  make  no  reply.  Now,  I  have  only  two  more  things 
to  say  ;  the  first,  this  is  my  study  ;  the  second,  there  is  the 
door  ;  make  rectilinears  in  quick  time,  and  leave  the  prem- 
i.ses  immediately.     I  am  not  your  brother  or  your  dupe. 

With  this,  I  rose  and  opened  the  door,  pointed  them  out, 
cleared  the  way  for  them,  and  have  never  heard  from  them 
since.  They  went  down  the  stairs,  and  disappeared  as  di- 
rected, uttering  many  and  various  denunciations  and  inspired 
predictions,  for  which  God,  who  hates  impostnre  more  than 
any  of  us,  will  call  them  to  account,  when  their  true  charac- 
ter shall  be  displayed  to  the  universe. 


What  specimens  of  popular  imposture  I  They  are  all  anti- 
evangelical,  all  of  the  policy  and  the  patronage  of  the  devil. 
These  are  illustrations  and  examples  of  those  religious  abom- 
inations which,  in  various  forms,  often  more  specious  and  in- 
sidious in  their  ways,  delude  the  multitude  and  prosper  for  a 
season,  till  some  newer  tilt  or  toiunanient  of  Satan  solicits 
their  credulity,  and  i'eeds  their  appetite  for  religious  oracles 
and  marvels  near  at  hand.      It  must  always  be  something 


BRUTALITY    OF    MORMONI8M.  293 

newer  than  the  truth.  Yet  is  it  most  humiliating  to  our 
country  and  our  age  I  Wlio  could  opine  that,  in  our  liaj)j)y 
land,  in  a  nation  of  voters,  freemen,  newspapers,  periodical 
literature,  and  general  reading,  such  a  gross  and  detestable 
imposture  as  Mormonism  could  find  disciples  and  devotees  ? 
That  such  a  wretched  scamp  as  Joe  Smith,  or  any  one  of  his 
successors,  could  have  prospered  in  his  audacious  way,  and 
with  his  hyper-apostolic  pretensions,  to  such  a  grave  extent? 
and  that  so  many,  both  in  Europe  and  in  America,  in  insular 
and  continental  Europe,  should  have  yielded  their  religious 
faith  and  being  to  so  much  absurdity,  to  such  diabolical  coun- 
terfeit ?  Yet  they  are  now  a  numerous  community,  and  Utah 
is  to  become  a  great  Mormon  State  of  our  Great  Confederacy, 
under  the  primacy  of  these  vulgar,  malignant,  and  selfish 
corrupters.  They  are  men  of  many  wives,  and  of  Mormon 
morality  on  all  subjects.  In  the  interview  above  reported,  it 
was  soon  obvious  that  their  views  were  destitute  of  all  rea- 
son and  evidence  ;  that  it  required  great  decision  and  direct- 
ness to  stem  the  torrent  of  their  inspired  assurance  ;  and  that 
only  a  very  little  religious  credulity,  could  I  have  mustered 
it,  was  requisite  to  make  their  sway  omnipotent,  their  juris- 
diction sure. 

We  have  now  various  specimens  of  the  general  sort,  either 
secret  and  skulking,  or  advertised  in  newspapers,  and  solicit- 
ing the  patronage  of  fools — as  witchcraft,  sorcery,  palmistry, 
divination,  astrology,  fortune-telling,  mesmerism,  mysterious 
knockings,  clairvoyance,  and  even  some  rare  manifestations 
of  phrenology,  with  learned  manipulations  and  oraculous  prog- 
nosis of  character,  founded  on  the  conformations  and  config- 
urations of  the  cranium,  its  sinuses  and  its  protuberances,  its 
form,  its  size,  and  its  relative  proportions. 

We  ought  to  be,  as  rational  and  genuine  Christians,  Avise 
to  resist  imposture,  bold  to  confront  it,  and  faithful  to  rebuke 
its  diaboli<ml  mendacity.  JBi/  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them  —  try  the  spirits — to  the  laio  and  the  testimony  ;  if 


294  SOME    LIMIT    TO    TOLERATION. 

they  speak  not  according  to  this  tcord,  it  is  because  there 
is  no  light  in  fhrm.  This  last  plain  oracle  disposes  of  all 
the  imposture  with  which,  in  its  multifarious  phases  and  va- 
rieties, the  dragon,  that  old  serpent,  which  is  the  Devil  and 
Satan,  deceivcth  the  nations,  and  who  is,  by  usurpation,  the 
prince  of  the  icorld,  the  leader  of  all  its  wickedness,  and  the 
spirit  that  nmo  worketh  in  the  childrefi  of  disobcdie?ice. 
The  truth  of  God  is  a  system  and  a  unit,  eternal,  unchange- 
able, and  tcritten  for  our  learning,  tliat  toe,  through  pa- 
tieftce  a7id  comfort  of  the  Scriptures,  7night  have  hope.  If 
we  receive  not  the  love  of  the  truth,  that  we  might  be  saved, 
we  know  the  consequence  ;  for  this  cause  God  shall  send 
them  strong  delusio?t,  that  they  shotdd  believe  a  lie,  tluit 
they  all  might  be  damned,  ivho  believed  not  the  truth,  but 
had  pleasure  in  tinrighteousness.  This  is  the  explanation 
of  the  matter,  and  there  is  competently  none  other.  Let  no 
man  be  diluted  and  doting,  no  man  a  trifler  with  God,  or  an 
experimental  gambler  with  his  own  immortal  destiny.  In  a 
moral  sense,  we  ought  to  hate  them  tJiat  hate  God,  and  have 
no  silly  remorses,  for  one  moment,  in  their  favor ;  proving 
ichat  is  acceptable  to  the  Lord ;  and  have  oto  felloivship  ivith 
the  unfruitful  works  of  darkness,  but  rather  reprove  them. 
And  let  even  an  angel  from  heaven  be  anathema  if  he  preach 
another  gospel. 

To  obtain  money  on  false  pretenses  is  actionable  at  com- 
mon law.  Yet  here  are  notable  instances  I  Jugglery,  quack- 
ery, lying,  hoaxing  the  poor,  bewitching  the  credulous,  rob- 
bing the  simple-minded,  gulUng  the  multitude,  in  all  these 
ways,  so  gross  and  palpable,  so  deleterious  and  ruinous,  cer- 
tainly some  of  these  deserve  the  animadversion  of  the  laws. 
Some  of  them  ought  to  be  indicted  by  the  Grand  Inquest  of 
the  county  ;  that  all  kinds  of  charlatanry  or  fraud  might  not 
seem  to  be  patronized  and  protected,  in  an  easy  and  an  ordi- 
nary way,  but  rather,  for  the  good  of  the  people,  exposed  and 
punished  by  our  republican  laws,  especially  when  imposture 


IMBECILITY    NOT    RELIGION.  SO^ 

dresses  itself  in  the  robes  of"  religion,  the  better  to  elude  re- 
sponsibility, and  eflt'ctuate  its  purposes.  It  is  abuse  and 
crime  ;  it  is  nuisance  as  well  as  impiety.  Let  no  American, 
by  approving,  become  a  partaker  of  such  evil. 

To  what  are  we  all  coming?  Are  truth  and  soberness 
to  be  repudiated  ?  Are  the  facts  of  philosophy,  the  laws  of 
nature,  the  ways  of  Providence,  the  truths  of  religion,  the 
known  realities  of  Scripture,  all  wisdom  and  soberness,  and 
all  the  province  of  genuine  faith  to  be  forsaken,  perverted, 
or  eclipsed,  simply  to  please  the  devil  and  his  angels.  If 
we  allow  ourselves  to  be  so  easily  trepanned  by  our  adver- 
sary the  devil,  the  age  of  jiossessimis  may  return  to  us  iu 
judgment ;  then,  like  the  fury  of  the  xclwlc  herd,  on  a  nota- 
ble occasion,  we  shall  run  violently  downward  on  a  descend- 
ing plaiii,  and  reach  a  catastrophe  in  the  end,  quite  as  sure, 
and  much  more  tremendous  in  ruin. 

The  plea  of  charity  —  a  word  most  marvelously  misun- 
derstood, and  unhappily  rendered  in  our  version,  and  terribly 
abused  by  blind  men  and  infidels — the  plea  of  charity  is  sil- 
ly and  false.  Error  and  imposture  are  no  objects  of  charity, 
but  only  of  revulsion  and  abhorrence.  Take  a  specimen  of 
apostolic  charity  from  the  pen  of  the  beloved  John,  by  way 
of  eminence,  the  Theologus  of  the  ancient  Fathers  :  If 
there  come  any  to  you,  and  bring  not  this  doctrine,  receive 
him  not  into  your  liouse,  neither  bid  him  God  speed;  do  not 
"  tell  him  to  rejoice" — literally  from  the  original ;  for  he  that 
biddeth  him  God  speed  is  partaker  of,  or  has  communion 
with,  his  evil  deeds.  The  disciple  of  Jesus'  bosom  wrote 
this  ! 

Take  another  specimen,  apostolical  and  inspired,  and  writ- 
ten for  our  learning — another  specimen  of  the  genuine  chari- 
ty of  heaven  :  And  uhen  they  had  gone  through  the  isle  of 
Cyprus  to  Paphus,  they  found  a  certain  sorcerer,  or  magi- 
cian, a  false  prophet,  a  Jew,  but  far  more  respectable,  I  ween, 
than  the  abominables  of  the  pseudo-celestial  and  fanatico- 


290        'J'llF,  COURAGK  OF  TRUK  CHARITY. 

Spiritual  "  knoc-kiufrs,"  or  oraculous  lliumpings,  pretension,  of 
our  own  days,  whose  name  teas  IJar-Jcsits :  irlio  teas  with 
the  deputy  of  the  coioitri/,  Scrgius  Paulus,  a  'priulent  man, 
or  an  intciligout  person  ;  who  called  for  Bar7iabas  and  Saul, 
and  desired  to  hear  the  word  or  doctrine,  rbv  Xoyov,  of  God. 
Bui  Eiymas,  the  sorcerer,  for  so  is  his  name  by  interpreta- 
ticni,  ivithstood  them,  seeking  to  turn  away  the  deputy  from 
the  faith.  Tlien  Saul,  who  also  is  called  Paul,  filled  with 
the  Holy  Ghost,  set  his  eyes  mi  him;  and  what  a  withering 
look  of  apostolic  charity  was  that,  when  he  said,  O !  fnll  of 
all  subtilty  and  all  mischief,  thon  child  of  the  devil,  thou 
enemy  of  all  righteousness,  wilt  thou  not  cease  to  per\'ert 

THE   RIGHT  WAYS  OF  THE   LoRD  I 

It  is  supposed  that  the  sublime  Apostle  of  the  nations, 
now  in  the  initiative  of  his  glorious  embassy  to  them,  chose 
to  change  his  name  from  the  Hebrew  to  the  Latin,  adopting 
or  prefixing  that  of  his  illustrious  convert,  not  only  in  com- 
memoration of  his  cordial  faith,  then  first  professed  at  his 
baptism,  but  also  because  its  meaning,  small,  Utile,  suited  at 
once  the  stature  of  his  body  and  the  humility  of  his  mind  ; 
and  also  because,  as  a  proper  name,  it  was  in  common  use  and 
general  honor  throughout  the  Roman  empire,  so  favoring  his 
mission.     Hence — PAUL,  that  noble  hero  of  the  cross  I 

Let  this  demonstration  of  charity  teach  and  arm  us  against 
all  the  importunities  of  error  and  imposture,  which  the  devil 
patronizes  and  his  victims  accredit,  in  this  sin-blinded,  and 
truth-hating,  and  dreadfully  apostate  world. 

In  the  conclusion  of  this  interview,  memorable  and  use- 
ful, I  may  remark,  on  the  one  hand,  that  they  seemed  really 
to  believe,  somehow,  the  divinity  of  their  own  mission,  not 
only  without  evidence,  but  against  it ;  so  high  and  confluent 
was  the  tide  of  their  delusion  and  their  assurance.  They  ap- 
peared to  boggle  at  the  only  miracle  enacted,  namely,  that 
of  their  own  failure.     It  was  a  prodigy  and  a  poser,  that 


PEETINACITY    OF   OUR    APOSTLES.  297 

seemed  impossible  to  their  creed,  but  strangely  real  in  their 
exasperating  experience.  Still,  there  was  tenacity  of  expect- 
ation. They  appeared  to  act  on  the  principle,  all  in  good 
time  I  the  crisis  must  be  mature  before  the  interposition  to 
meet  it  will  suit  the  way  of  heaven.  Nee  deus  intersit,  ?iisi 
nodus  vindice  dignus  —  it  is  not  worth  while  for  divinity  to 
interfere  till  a  difficulty  occurs  that  warrants  and  vindicates 
a  solution  so  sublime  I  But  here  was  the  nodus  only,  and 
they  stared  at  it ;  especially  the  chief  speaker,  as  having 
more  faith  in  fooleries,  possibly,  than  his  astute  and  reserved 
colleague.  I  never  saw  such  assurance  enacted  and  main- 
tained so  palpably  against  invincible  fact.  It  was  as  the  faith 
of  a  lunatic  striking  his  head  against  rock  because  he  believ- 
ed it  was  only  cloud.  Hence  they  were  reluctant  to  go,  or 
bring  the  convention  to  an  end.  They  only  cast  about  to  see 
what  they  were  to  do  next,  sure  of  the  result,  and  set  incor- 
rigibly and  religiously  in  their  heaven-shown  way. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  I  may  be  permitted  to  aver  it,  as  no 
other  witness  can,  I  maintained  a  calm  and  a  courteous  man- 
ner, as  I  was  resolved  from  the  first  to  do,  and  thus  became 
imperturbably  and  most  provokingly  good-natured.  Still,  I 
was  firm  as  well  as  calm  ;  and  reiterating,  as  it  were  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  as  well  as  a  thing  of  reason,  the  demand  for 
EVIDENCE  IN  ORDER  TO  FAITH,  the  position  just  there,  in  lim- 
ine, where  I  kept  it,  became  to  them  a  bore  impracticable, 
and  an  obstacle  tremendous,  of  which,  as  almost  new  and 
strange,  they  appeared  never  to  have  anticipated  or  thought. 
When,  however,  their  self-induced  dilemma  was  felt  to  be  real 
and  serious,  its  formidable  weight  increasing  its  pressure  every 
moment,  they  became  irritable  and  impudent.  They  vented 
their  anger  in  sallies  of  warnings,  prophecies,  denunciations, 
abusive  epithets,  and  Mormon  hobgoblins.  All  this  I  sur- 
vived and  tranquilly  endured,  through  several  fits  and  repe- 
titions— till  at  last  it  seemed  meet,  in  a  peremptory  way,  to 
prorogue  the  parliament  by  a  brief  speech  in  j}erson,  as  raon- 
N  2 


208        Tin;  truth  ever  the  same. 

arch  of  my  own  study.  This,  too,  seemed  to  take  them  all 
aback.  They  were  reluctant  to  go,  and  still  determined  to 
succeed  in  their  mission.  My  manner,  however,  was  reso- 
lute and  mandatory  that  they  should  quit  the  premises  ;  and 
hence,  at  last,  with  awkwardness  and  confused  faith  in  things 
impossible,  they  complied.  The  invei'view  lasted  considera- 
bly more  than  half  an  hour,  and  no  conceivable  advantage 
could  be  apprehended  from  protracting  it.  Besides,  I  was  fa- 
tigued— the  heat  was  wilting,  and  they  were  at  the  time 
boisterous,  both  at  once,  or  alternating  incessantly,  with  their 
jjivectives.  In  the  whole  scene,  they  gave  the  strophe  and 
the  antistrophe  with  zeal  interminable  ;  and  as  for  the  epode, 
properly  my  own  part,  it  was  like  singing  love-songs  to  the 
spirit  of  the  storm — it  Avas  either  precluded,  or  utterly  lost 
in  the  uproar  of  the  elements. 

On  the  whole,  I  have  little  to  regret  in  the  retrospect  — 
taken  as  I  was  on  the  sudden,  with  a  fanatical  onslaught,  the 
like  of  which  1  never  saw  or  experienced,  in  its  entire  and 
cxtcii.«ivc  momentum,  before  or  since.  Yet  I  have  .siibsc- 
(|ii('iitly  hi-ard  of  several  instances  of  the  general  sort,  not  of 
Mormon  sympathy  alone,  but  all  of  serene  im])osturc  and  re- 
ligious abomination,  enacting  dreadful  impiety  for  some  tem- 
poral and  sinister  ends,  in  the  name  of  the  eternal  God  I  My 
general  motive  ior  inserting  this  narrative,  is  to  place  all 
readers  properly  on  their  guard  against  such  devices  of  the 
adversaiy  ;  or,  in  contact  with  his  emissaries,  to  assist  pos- 
sibly their  proper  wisdom  in  counteracting  their  treacherous 
assaults,  in  penetrating  their  deceitful  arrogance,  and,  finally, 
in  rebuking  their  desperate  iniquity.  Let  us  believe  the  truth 
of  THE  GOSPEL,  AND  THAT  ONLY,  whatever  otlicrs  believe  I 
since  the  everlasting  gospel  shall  yet  be  the  creed  of  na- 
tions and  the  glory  of  eternity  ;  as  all  other  creeds  and  all 
other  glories  shall  perish  forever.  For  all  flesh  is  as  grass, 
and  all  the  glory  of  man  as  ihc  foirrr  of  grass.  The  grass 
tvithercth,  and  the  finifer  thereof  fatleth  a.rvay ;  hut  the 


THE    GOSPEI,    AND    ITS    AUTHOR    MNCIFANfMNG.        299 
WORD   OF   THE   LoUD   ENDURETH   FOREVER.       Aiul  tJlJs  IS  the 

■word  ivhich  by  the  gospel  is  2^ reached  to  you  —  with  no  ad- 
dition, or  subtraction,  or  multiplication  allowed  in  this,  tJte 
last  time  ;  as  solemnly  and  immutably  sealed  till  the  second 
coming  and  tue  glorious  appearing  of  the  great  God 
AND  Savior  of  us,  Jesus  Christ.  Compare  the  original  oi" 
Tit.  2  :  13,  14  ;  and  Rev.  22  :  18,  19,  Amen!  Even  so, 
come,  Lord  Jesus.  The  grace  of  our  Loi'd  Jesus  Christ  be 
ivith  you  all.     Amen. 


INTERVIEW 

WITH    A 

FASHIONABLE  LADY  OF  DISTINCTION 

AT    CALAIS,  FRANCE. 


And  they  that  use  this  world  as  not  abusing  it ;  for  the  fashion  of  this  world  paasetk 
away. — 1  Cor.  7  :  31. 

But  she  that  liveth  in  pleasure  is  dead  while  she  liveth. — 1  Tim.  5  :  6. 
Such  being  aliens  from  the  commomvealth  of  Israel,  and  strangers  from  the  cove- 
nants of  promise,  having  no  hope,  and  without  God  in  the  world. — Eph.  2:  12. 
Fis  anus,  et  tamen 
Vis  formosa  videri, 

Ludisque  et  bibis  impudens. — Hor. 
Quam  rarum,  quam  difficile,  ut  homo  muliere  natua,  se  ipsum  cognoscat. — Mod. 


A  DISTINGUISHED  FASHIONABLE  LADY 
AT  CALAIS. 


TiiK  wickeJ,  or  the  ihoughlless  and  the  ungodly,  arc  a 
source  of  sincere  grief  to  the  enlightened  Christian.  To  see 
them,  to  mark  their  practical  atheism,  or  even  the  thought 
of  what  they  are  and  whither  they  are  going,  is  a  "wound  to 
their  moral  sensibility  ;  and  all  this,  none  the  less,  because 
they  see  no  danger,  I'ear  no  evil,  and  feel  very  happy.  Yet, 
when  they  shall  say,  "^:)eace  and  safety,"  then  sudden  de- 
struction cmncth  vjmn  them,  and  they  shall  not  csca/pc. 
However,  in  other  things,  intelligent  and  respectable,  grace- 
ful and  popular,  or  even  useful  and  eminent,  still  their  doom 
is  written  and  their  character  described.  He  icill  take  venge- 
ance 071  litem  that  know  not  God,  and  that  obey  not  the 
gospel  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  To  obey  the  gospel  is  the 
way  and  the  medium  of  knowing  God.  Hence  their  igno- 
rance is  voluntary  and  criminal.  It  results  from  their  diso- 
bedience. They  hate  the  light,  and  therefore  come  not  to  it. 
Their  neglect  is  repeated  till  it  becomes  habitual.  It  is  an 
incrustation  of  character,  an  habituation  of  moral  servility 
and  deceptive  alienation  from  God.  It  gains  and  grows  on 
its  victims.  It  blinds  and  infatuates  them  with  their  owii 
sincere  consent.  Hence  the  grief  is  founded  and  rational, 
which  it  legitimately  occasions  in  the  bosom  of  pious  fiiend- 
ship ;  such  as  Christian  mothers,  sisters,  daughters,  and  es- 
pecially wives  and  all  their  correlates,  are  often  called  pe- 
culiarly to  know  ;  and  as  all  Christians  at  times  are  com- 
pelled to  share.     It  is  a  grief  unselfish,  unobtrusive,  and  un- 


304  FROM  DOVER  TO  CALAIS. 

appreciated  mainly  bj'  its  object,  though  of  great  price  in 
heaven  I  What  care  the  lost  souls  in  Jerusalem, y^owiw^ose 
eyes  the  things  of  their  joeace  are  forever  hid,  for  the  tears 
of  love  divine  Aveeping  over  their  doomed  city  !  Hoiv  often 
would  I  have  gathered  you,  and  ye  tcould  not! 

When  a  Christian  journeys,  even  in  nominal  Christendom, 
he  sees  human  nature  in  many  a  strange  and  revolting  spec- 
tacle displayed.  It  entertains,  affects,  instructs  him.  Ho 
grieves  for  them  ;  and  heaven  records,  however  earth  dis- 
parages, the  groans  he  heaves,  the  w^ounds  he  feels,  the  fears 
he  knows,  and  the  prayers  he  offers,  as  he  observes  their  man- 
ners and  their  ways. 

Sometimes  the  contrasts  of  splendid  and  impious  are  coun- 
terpoised by  those  of  a  jewel  of  God,  as  seen  to  sparkle  amid 
all  the  externals  of  squalidity  and  want.  On  the  present  oc- 
casion, however,  we  have  to  describe  a  character  adorned 
with  all  worldly  glory ;  yet  strangely  vacant  and  insipid,  I 
might  say  even  silly,  in  reference  to  every  nobler  object  of 
duty,  or  destiny,  or  existence  ;  ivise  to  do  evil  —  to  do  good 
having  no  knowledge.  I  will  amplify  some  extracts  from 
my  itinerary  or  traveling  journal,  referring  to  individuals  with- 
out name,  as  it  is  no  part  of  my  plan  to  be  personal,  or  to 
wound  the  feelings  of  any  one,  but  only  to  do  good  I 

It  was  on  Thursday,  June  6,  1833,  at  11  A.M.  that  we 
sailed  from  Dover,  England,  for  Calais,  in  France.  We  were 
in  the  little  yacht  of  a  steamer,  Fire-fly,  sailing  across  the 
channel,  with  its  surface  of  beauty  as  serene  as  that  of  Lake 
George  or  Lake  Champlain,  as  I  have  delighted  to  view  them, 
when  ruffled  gently  with  a  breeze  of  summer.  About  sixty 
persons  in  all,  various  in  appearance,  in  language,  in  man- 
ners, in  character,  and  in  relation  to  each  other,  from  differ- 
ent and  distant  nations  of  the  earth,  were  there  all  collected 
and  consolidated  for  nearly  three  hours,  going,  as  it  seemed 
to  me,  on  a  slow  trot ;  our  little  pony  of  a  boat  moving  in  a 
couTBo  not  very  direct  or  swift  toward  our  destined  haven- 


THE    fire-fly's    company    AND    MUSIC.  305 

All,  however,  seemed  to  enjoy  themselves.  We  were  togeth- 
er three  Americans,  pledged  to  keep  in  company,  Avith  mu- 
tual interest  and  assistance,  till  we  arrived  in.  Paris.  For 
one,  the  jaunt  was  to  me  singularly  novel  and  agreeable. 
Some  men  of  state — if  not  statesmen,  and  some  of  noble  bear- 
ing— if  not  nobles,  and  some  looking  clerical — if  not  clergy- 
men, they,  and  their  wives,  and  their  daughters,  figiired 
gracefully  and  well  in  the  tout  ensemble  oOhe  moving  scene. 
8till,  there  is  sometimes  seen  in  such  assemblages  a  blufT 
dignity  that  may  be  English,  but  is  not  American — I  had  al- 
most said,  not  Christian — as  the  equally  censurable  extreme, 
in  contrast  with  the  too  familiar  manners  of  our  countrymen, 
at  least  occasionally  witnessed.  Well,  said  I  to  myself,  no  pat- 
ent of  nobility  consciously  possessed,  meliorating  one's  blood, 
and  all  that,  could  make  the  scene  or  the  occasion  more  ex- 
hilarating and  balmy  ;  and  I  consciously  repeated,  from  some 
long  unused  registration  on  the  tablet  of  my  memory,  the  fol- 
lowing lines  fi'om  the  Task  : 

Now  hoist  the  sail,  and  let  the  streamers  float 

Upon  the  wanton  breezes.     Strew  the  deck 

With  lavender,  and  sprinkle  hquid  sweets, 

That  no  rude  savor  maritime  invade 

The  nose  of  nice  nobility  !  breathe  soft. 

Ye  clarionets,  and  softer  still,  ye  flutes  ; 

That  winds  and  waters,  lull'd  by  magic  sounds. 

May  bear  us  smoothly  to  the  Gallic  shore. 

Yes,  we  had  music,  such  as  it  was,  obtrusive  with  its  man- 
ufactured sounds,  but  more  with  its  mendicant  importunities 
to  be  —  gratuitously  —  paid  for  them.  When  Cowper  wrote 
those  lines,  his  imagination  never  dreamed  of  such  an  airy 
nothing  as  swift  travel,  on  land  or  water,  by  steam  !  Yet,  so 
leisurely  was  our  steaming,  cutting  some  angular  and  some 
curvilinear  figures  in  our  course,  as  if  on  purpose  to  detain  us 
longer  on  the  glassy  element,  and  not  arrive  too  soon  for  some- 
body's special  convenience,  that,  about  two-and-twenty  miles 
of  transit,  instead  of  "  gone  in  an  hour,"  as  we  are  wont  char- 


306  FIRST    MEAL    IN    FRANCE. 

acteristically  to  go,  as  our  minimum  in  America,  strangely 
cost  us  about  thrice  that  amount  of  time  before  our  cruise 
was  ended.  I  would  not,  however,  complain  of  it.  It  is  not 
a  long  time  to  go  from  England  to — France  I  so  at  least  our 
fathers  were  wont  to  think,  not  without  all  vernacular  ap- 
prehension. It  was  to  me  a  very  pleasant  diversion  ;  and  I 
regard  it  always  with  new  delight,  in  the  present  retrospect 
of  almost  twenty  years.  The  English,  too,  enjoy  it,  with  a 
kind  of  national  jubilation.  France  once  was  theirs,  nomin- 
ally, for  several  centuries. 

But  our  narration  must  here  omit  the  subsequent  events 
and  circumstances,  though  devoid  neither  of  interest  nor  in- 
struction. After  customary  hinderances  jind  vexations,  we 
were  summoned,  about  four  o'clock,  to  the  large  saloon,  re- 
fectory, or  salle  a  manger,  to  dine ;  where  the  great  and 
florid  table  (Thbte  was  ornamented  and  displayed,  a  la  mode, 
and  we  were  to  eat  for  the  tirst  time  on  the  continent  of  Eu- 
rope, and  in  France  I 

Our  guests  were  quite  numerous,  and  even  more  diversified 
than  our  felloAV-passengers  in  the  Fire-fly.  Near  the  head  of 
the  table  were  seated  a  number  of  good-looking  military  offi- 
cers, some  of  them  generals  of  note,  just  returning  from  the 
siege  of  Antwerp  ;  and,  though  seemingly  formidable  in  their 
brilliant  uniform,  bright  epaulets,  and  bearded  physiognomy, 
their  manners  Avere  polished  and  gentle,  and  graceful  withal ; 
so  that  they  seemed  no  encumbrance,  but  an  acquisition  rath- 
er, to  our  large  and  motley  dining  party.  The  other  guests, 
ladies  and  gentlemen  nearly  equal,  were  quite  various  in  cos- 
tume and  language,  generally  strangers  to  each  other,  yet,  on 
the  whole,  well  behaving,  not  without  courteous  bearing,  and 
the  proofs  of  education  and  refinement.  We  three  Americans 
were  all  the  representatives,  on  the  occasion,  present,  of  the 
great  occidental  republic.  We  felt  i)iter  se  American  ;  en- 
deavoring so  to  act  as  not  to  discredit  our  far-off,  our  dearly- 
beloved  country.     We  thought,  with  new  and  vivid  interest, 


THE    LADY    OF    THE    WIIOI.K    SCKIVE.  307 

of  home,  sweet  home,  of  Hail  Columbia,  Yankee  Doodle, 
Fourth  of  July,  Stars  and  Stripes,  E  pluribus  Unum,  Llbcrtas 
et  natale  solum  ;  and  were  sensible  to  whatever  incident  re- 
minded us  of  our  own  dear  native  land,  loved  even  more  in 
our  separation.  To  two  of  us,  the  scene,  as  French,  was  all 
a  novelty  ;  the  third  had  previously  become  even  familiar 
with  the  manners  and  localities  of  the  Continent.  Almost 
every  preparation  of  food,  and  especially  the  most  specious 
and  attractive,  was  quite  an  ambiguity.  It  was  anonymous 
and  foreign  to  our  thoughts,  cooked  scientifically,  metamorph- 
osed, seasoned  too  much,  and  no  doubt,  ^ar  excellence,  all  just 
right,  comme  il  faut. 

An  old  bUnd  harper  was  led  by  his  daughter  to  a  conven- 
ient spot  standing  there,  to  comfort  us  all  with  music  at  the 
feast ;  and  then  that  we  much  more  might  comfort  them 
with  a  generous  douceur  in  compensation.  We  realized  in 
this  one  of  the  scenes  and  usages  of  which  we  had  often  read, 
but  never  saw  before.  He  played  and  she  sang ;  but  the 
minstrelsy  seemed  not  remarkably  agreeable  to  the  critics. 

Near  the  centre  of  the  table  there  was  one  personage  that 
appeared  about  equally  to  attract,  and  to  expect,  universal 
attention — a  lady.  She  was  certainly  as  much  as  threescore 
years  of  age,  yet  fair,  or  almost  florid,  graceful,  and  even 
commanding,  in  her  port  and  mien.  Having  received  adu- 
lation for  many  successive  years,  she  seemed  to  consider  it 
now  as  her  right  and  a  matter  of  course.  In  conversation 
she  used  good  English,  yet  with  an  accent  that  indicated  her 
nativity  elsewhere.  She  soon  addressed  the  old  harper  in 
Italian,  with  reprehension  for  his  inferior  performance.  To 
the  French  officers,  she  was  easy  and  fluent  in  their  vernac- 
ular ;  and  equally  so  in  German,  to  others.  A  gentleman, 
who  seemed  well  to  know  her  history,  informed  us  of  its  chief 
events  and  characters.  She  was  a  faded  beauty,  once  "  the 
leading  star  of  every  eye,  the  theme  of  every  minstrel's  art." 
She  had  figured  in  fashionable  society  of  the  most  honored 


308  HER    I'KRriON    ANU    STYLK    OF    CONDUCT. 

sort.  Courts,  theatres,  drawing-rooms,  ball-rooms,  masquer- 
ades, and  public  jjagcauts — at  Vienna,  at  Rome,  at  Paris,  at 
London,  and  other  places  of  godless  grandeur,  had  been  iier 
spliere  and  her  home  ;  all  the  ultimate  home,  or  hope,  prob- 
ably, that  her  ladyship  ever  recognized,  or  desired,  or  knew  I 
A])art  from  something  too  much  approaching  the  imperious, 
il'  not  the  imperial  or  the  queenly,  her  manners  were  good, 
dignified,  and  even  elegant.  She  was  rather  tall  in  person, 
well  proportioned,  with  a  bust  of  conscious  beauty  ;  her  conn- 
lenance  expressive,  self-sustained,  intelligent,  and  yet  bland. 
How  much  modesty  she  should  have  shown,  more  than  was 
visible  in  her  air,  or  to  be  inferred  from  all  the  premises  be- 
fore us,  in  order  to  exemplify  the  perfection  of  feminine  be- 
havior, so  as  to  provoke  or  deserve  no  censure  of  her  bearing, 
as  occasionally  overbearing  and  almost  Amazonian,  I  may 
not  aver.  Yet,  whenever  a  lady  ceases  to  be  tender,  gentle, 
delicate,  all  without  affectation,  or  to  exhale  soft,  and  sweet, 
and  virtuous  influences,  as  the  proper  atmosphere  of  her  per- 
son and  the  peculiar  charm  of  her  presence,  in  my  view  she 
ceases,  proportionately,  to  be  attractive  ;  and  instead  of  be- 
ing, as  she  ought,  an  example  of  the  agreeable  and  the  love- 
ly, to  the  proper  adornment  and  praise  of  the  sex,  she  revolts 
me — like  a  mannish  monster  in  ladyship's  attire,  a  colloquial 
blue-stocking,  a  woman  that  is  no  lady  I  Still,  this  person- 
age of  many  accomplishments  was  a  grandmother ;  and 
something,  probably,  must  be  credited  to  her  age.  Much 
that  was  showy  and  flne  distinguished  her.  She  sat  on  the 
side  of  the  table,  a  remarkably  wide  one,  with  central  flow- 
ers and  ornaments  intervening,  opposite  to  myself;  but  I  ex- 
changed no  word  with  her,  observing  none  the  less  her  man- 
ifestings  and  her  manners.  Peers  and  princes  had  been 
among  her  admirers  and  her  courtiers.  Every  one  seemed 
to  own  the  superior  distinction  of  her  appearance,  with  which, 
indeed,  she  appeared  rather  consciously  to  shed  insignificance 
or  nothingness  on  all  the  other  ladies,  and  some  brilliant  and 


SCKNES    AND    MF.-\rOK IF,.=l    rOMJirxcT.  309 

fine  ones,  at  the  banquet  with  her ;  and  so  careering  she 
maintained  the  prestige  of  her  superiority, yVowi  tlie  egg  to 
tlic  app/e  of"  the  festal  engagement ;  and  if  her  consciousness 
was  sometimes  quite  observable,  she  seemed,  at  the  same 
time,  to  vindicate  it,  by  the  stately  elegance  and  the  obvious 
success  of  her  manners. 

After  we  had  despatched  the  continuous  courses  of  the  din- 
ner, and  made  a  contribution  for  the  "  white-haired  Allan 
Bane,"  the  old  harper  and  his  daughter,  the  company  dis- 
persed in  different  directions.  We  wandered  over  the  scen- 
ery of  the  place,  the  town,  and  its  gardens,  and  its  walks, 
and  its  palaces,  with  observations,  and  some  of  the  prominent 
recollections  of  history  agreeably  awakened,  both  French  and 
English.  The  siege  of  Calais  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
when  Edward  the  Third  reduced  it ;  the  appearance  of  the 
six  self-offered  victims,  with  ropes  round  their  necks,  at  the 
feet  of  the  proud  and  cruel  monarch,  and  the  intercession  of 
his  tender-hearted  queen,  Philippa,  procuring  their  release, 
in  consideration  of  her  earnestness,  and  even  of  her  royal 
loveliness,  less,  possibly,  than  of  her  delicate  maternal  condi- 
tion ;  and  the  moral  contrast  between  the  magnanimity  of 
those  devoted  and  patriotic  burgesses  at  the  time,  and  the 
selfish  mannei's  of  the  conqueror  ;  a  paragon  at  once  of  the 
glorious  chivalry  of  the  age  and  of  its  moral  barbarism,  un- 
der the  dark,  and  the  horrid,  and  the  then  solitary  and  ram- 
pant patronage  of  popery  ;  just  before  the  day-star  of  the  Ref- 
ormation arose  in  the  person  of  the  blessed  Wiclif,  then  in 
the  process  of  ripening  for  his  great  and  unending  usefulness  : 
these  were  the  topics  that  chiefly  engaged  us  as  we  made 
our  curious  and  hasty  explorations,  without  identifying  the 
veni  spots,  in  the  topography  of  the  town  and  its  environs, 
■whei'c  happened  those  events  of  historical  and  thrilling  in- 
terest, rather  more  than  five  centui'ies  ago.  The  interval 
was  happy,  as  it  left  us  some  hours  to  ramble  and  view  the 
scenery  of  Calais,  of  which  from  early  youth  our  memories 


310  CONVERSE    IN    THE    PIAZZA. 

had  been  conversant,  with  unaffected  interest  and  dehght. 
We  were,  however,  to  start  at  nine  o'clock  for  Paris  in  the 
niaUe-poste ;  having  been  so  fortunate  as  to  secure  the  only 
three  seats  which,  with  Monsieur  le  Conducteur,  are  to  be 
had  in  that  vehicle,  as  distinguished  from  the  great  national 
omnibus,  la  diligence  ;  which,  with  its  cabriolet*  its  coupe, 
its  interieur,  and  its  rotonde,  drawn  by  six  or  ten  horses,  each 
on  his  own  hook,  was,  till  lately,  the  only  common  method 
of  traveling  in  France  or  on  the  Continent.  But  steam  is 
now  the  wondrous  metamorphosis  of  all  civilized  society,  and 
the  pacific  revolutionizer  of  its  ancient  usages,  on  land  and 
water,  in  Europe  and  in  America,  and  soon  to  be  the  way  of 
travel  all  over  the  world.  Progress  is  now  the  word,  in 
more  than  one  sense  I 

As  we  returned  to  our  rooms,  we  parted,  and  my  own  sol- 
itary approach  was  toward  the  back  piazza  of  our  Hotel 
Meurice,  where,  as  I  arrived,  I  found  our  distinguished  ma- 
dame  walking  at  ease  and  alone.  As  she  had  also  been  a 
topic,  I  was  prepared  to  feel  some  interest  in  her,  especially 
as  related  to  religion.  The  opportunity  was  favorable,  rare, 
unexpected.  Whatever  the  reader  may  think  of  it,  the  fact 
is  that  I  pitied  her  !  She  seemed  to  me  the  victim  of  a  bad 
education,  which,  in  connection  with  her  own  excellent  abil- 
ities and  plainly  wicked  heart,  was  old  at  the  work  of  the 
process  of  hardening  her  in  sin  and  unbelief;  and  I  determ- 
ined to  attempt  the  improvement  of  an  event  that  might 
never  again  occur,  as  I  now  seemed  to  have  a  special  oppor- 
tunity of  conversation  with  her. 

1.  The  evening,  madam,  is  pleasant,  and  I  perceive  you 
are  enjoying  it.     1  hope  you  are  in  good  health. 

*  The  first,  on  the  top  in  front,  holds  two  or  three,  and  the  con- 
duclor ;  the  second,  three  only,  at  the  highest  price ;  the  third,  six, 
select  and  respectable;  the  fourth,  all  that  can  stow  in  it,  with  to- 
bacco, fiddles,  lap-dogs,  garlic,  vulgarity,  noise,  wine,  beer,  brandy, 
snuff,  and  cheapness. 


OUR    VARIABLE    WEATHER.  311 

2.  Perfectly  well,  sir.  The  air  and  the  scenery  are  veiy 
agreeable. 

1.  It  seems  rich  and  luxurious  to  myself,  and  two  others 
who  are  with  me  from  America  ;  and  as  strangers  here,  new, 
in  this  old  world,  we  regard  every  thing  with  peculiar  in- 
terest.    Few  can  imagine  it  Avithout  experience. 

2.  Ah  I  you  are  from  America  ?  Well,  I  thought  there 
was  something  rather  peculiar  in  your  appearance ;  but 
knew  not  before  that  we  had  with  us  three  gentlemen  to  dine 
to-day  from  that  great  country,  so  far  distant  from  Europe. 

1.  It  probably  seems  farther  to  you,  who  merely  contem- 
plate it  at  a  distance,  than  to  us  and  to  our  countrymen,  who 
are  so  much  and  so  increasingly  in  the  habit  of  ci"ossing  the 
ocean  to  visit  these  nations  and  lands  of  our  ancestors,  to  us 
so  historical  and  so  new. 

2.  You  are  quite  bold  and  enterprising,  and  we  admire 
your  adventurous  spirit  ;  though,  in  crossing  the  Atlantic, 
there  are  few  of  us  that  dare  to  imitate  it,  I  think. 

1.  Apart  from  myriads  of  emigrants,  who  cross  the  ocean 
ordinarily  but  once,  we  certainly  surpass  you  in  that  achieve- 
ment. We  visit  Europe,  tour  it  through  its  whole  extent, 
both  insular  and  continental,  and  mark  all  that  seems  mem- 
orable and  rare  in  our  journey. 

2.  Your  visits,  too,  are  often  commercial,  I  am  informed  ; 
and  even  that  is  showing  a  spirit  of  adventure  that  is  really 
an  honor  to  you.  But  some  of  your  visits  are  valetudinarian. 
You  migrate  in  quest  of  health,  amd  come  to  our  softer  and 
milder  climates  ;  since  yours,  I  hear,  are  so  rough,  severe, 
and  changeable. 

1 .  \Ye  have  some  extremes  of  heat  and  cold,  but  our  changes 
are  probably  overrated.  Some  of  your  soft  and  delicate  gen- 
try of  Europe,  I  know,  are  extravagantly  afraid  of  them. 

2.  Yes,  indeed.  Some  of  my  correspondents  there,  friends 
that  have  visited  your  country,  sadly  complain  of  it,  especial- 
ly its  severe  and  frequent  changes  in  the  temperature  of  the 


312  NOT    IMF'.RniANT?,   RI'T    MIMSTKRS. 

•weather.     In  some  places,  they  tell  me,  they  have  four  or 
five  climates  in  one  day. 

1.  That,  madam,  is  certainly  extravaj^ance — a  sample  of 
oriental  hyperbole  rather  than  historical  truth. 

2.  Oh  I  you  are  so  accustomed  to  it,  and  so  full  of  other 
things,  that  you  less  observe  it,  probably.  How  do  you  find 
our  atmosphere  ? 

1.  Sometimes  so  remarkably  variable,  that  is,  in  England, 
that  I  observe  it  very  accurately.  There,  too,  it  is  exceed- 
ingly humid,  a  misty  and  drizzling  rain  often  falling  unper- 
ceived,  or  known  from  its  cfieets  only.  How  it  may  be  on 
the  continent,  I  have  yet  to  learn. 

2.  Do  you  visit  Italy  in  your  plan  ? 

1.  That  is  yet  left  at  large.  I  am  not  certain  even  of  our 
intentions,  as  I  hear  much  about  the  cholera  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Alps,  and  must  be  determined  by  circumstances. 
We  shall  probably  visit  Switzerland,  Germany,  and  Holland, 
perhaps  Belgium,  before  we  return  to  England. 

2.  Belgium  and  Holland,  you  know,  are  in  a  state  of  war, 
and  you  may  find  it  inconvenient  to  pass  from  either  to  the  oth- 
er, and  much  more  to  transact  any  commercial  aflairs  in  them. 

1.  Our  plan,  madam,  has  nothing  to  do  with  commerce  ; 
that  is,  I  and  my  companion  appertain  to  the  clerical  pro- 
fession ;  though  the  other,  or  third  one  of  our  company,  is 
commercially  engaged,  and  for  that  purpose  is  soon  to  visit 
Lyons,  after  some  weeks,  perhaps,  at  Paris,  Avhither  we  are 
all  to  depart  in  an  hour  or  so. 

2.  You,  then,  are  an  American  preacher — a  minister  of 
religion  ? 

1.  Yes,  madam,  and  I  would  love  always  to  magnifu  my 
office.  To  me,  every  human  pursuit  or  acquisition  seems  less, 
infinitely  less,  than  that  of  religion.  What  is  it  all  witlioiit 
ical  estate  in  eternity  ?  We  die  so  soon,  life  is  so  perilous, 
the  future  so  solemn,  and  sin  so  terribly  related  to  the  judij- 
ment  of  God  I 


IGNORANCK    ANU    INriDBLITY.  313 

2.  I  seldom  speak  on  such  topics,  sir ;  and  opinions  vary. 

1.  Opinions,  my  good  lady,  as  such,  are  of  very  little  ac- 
count. Truth  is  all,  and  the  word  of  liod  is  truth.  And 
truth  will  stand  forever. 

2.  Oh  I  sir,  I  confess  it  is  all  mystery  to  me — above  my 
comprehension,  quite. 

1.  Yet,  if  your  heart  was  right  in  the  sight  of  God,  his 
truth  would  seem  all-excellent  and  all-precious  to  your  soul. 

2.  That,  indeed  ! 

1.  You  know,  my  dear  madam,  that  you  had  a  Creator, 
and  that  you  must  die,  and  after  death  the  judgment.  Now, 
is  it  rational  to  know  all  this,  and  yet  neglect  all  prepara- 
tion for  what  is  so  inevitable  and  so  awful  ? 

2.  Oh  I  sir,  whatever  comes,  I  am  safe,  you  know. 

1.  Truth  to  say,  madam,  I  know  no  such  thing.  We  may 
have  a  hope  that  is  not  of  the  right  kind — a  hope  that  will 
make  us  ashamed  forever.  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons. 
His  judgment  is  just,  and  his  truth  inviolable.  You  may 
have  a  hope  without  any  right  foundation  ;  and  if  so,  the 
only  time  to  rectify  is — before  you  die  I 

2.  I  am  not  at  all  afraid — whatever  comes. 

1.  There  may  be  reason  of  fear  utterly  unknown  to  you, 
because  you  have  never  examined  or  studied  the  subject. 
But  why  are  you  so  assured  of  safety  at  all  events  ?  I  should 
really  like  to  know  the  reason  of  your  persuasion,  your  secu- 
rity. 

2.  Yes,  sir  ;  I  am  safe  enough  there. 

1.  God  has  spared  you,  madam,  many  years,  and  blessed 
you  in  his  providence  ;  but  soon  you  may  be  called  to  die, 
and  if  your  hope  is  not  of  the  right  kind  in  his  sight — if  it 
depends  on  sand  instead  of  the  Rock  of  Ages,  your  assurance 
Avill  do  you  no  good.  Delusion  is  a  very  diflerent  thing  from, 
safety,  and  quite  as  diflerent  from  conviction. 

2.  Well,  what  do  you  think  would  become  of  me  ? 

1.  Madam,  we  are  all  sinners  in  the  sight  of  God  ;  and  as 
O 


314  hi:r  remaukauli:  hope. 

such,  in  ourselves,  we  are  utterly  lost.  God  has  provided,  in 
the  mission  and  the  passion  of  his  Son,  a  full  salvation  for 
mankind  ;  He  offers  it  to  us  freely,  ivithout  7^ioney,  atid  with- 
out price ;  but  we  must  accept  it,  accept  that  same  salva- 
tion, or,  dying  as  well  as  living  in  our  sins,  we  perish  forever. 
And  have  you  accepted  his  salvation  ? 

2.  Oh  I  sir,  what  is  all  that  to  me  ?  I  certainly  never 
heard  such  doctrine.  Why,  sir,  you  surprise  me.  It  is  rather 
ridiculous. 

1 .  Madam,  it  is  the  gospel  of  God,  and  not  of  my  invention. 

2.  AVell,  sir,  I  will  tell  you,  then,  just  what  nriy  hope  is — 
only  I  can  say  I  never  thought  of  it  so  much  before. 

1.  And  yet  of  every  thing  else,  inferior  and  mean  in  the 
comparison,  you  have  thought,  read,  conversed,  and  in  some 
degree  understood,  in  all  your  life  I  But  pray  tell  me  your 
hope. 

2.  Well  then  —  here  it  is  :  if  there  is  any  hereafter, 

I  SHALL  BE  SAFE  ENOUGH,  BECAUSE  I  NEVER  DID  ANY  THING 
WRONG,   AND  I  NEVER  HAD  BUT  ONE  FAULT  IN  ALL   MY   LIFE. 

1.  Well,  madam,  pray  tell  me  just  that  one  fault  of  yours. 

2.  I  will,  sir.  It  consists  simply  in  this — in  always  being 
too  good  and  kind  to  every  body.  That  always  was  my  fault, 
I  own.     And  all  my  friends  say  the  same. 

1.  So,  my  dear  madam,  this  is  your  hope  I  Eeally,  in  the 
form  of  it  and  its  curious  development,  it  is  the  most  unique 
specimen,  the  most  wonderful  hope,  the  most  of  its  own  class, 
and  like  itself  alone,  that  I  ever  saw,  or  read,  or  heard  re- 
ported ! 

2.  You  disapprove  of  it  then,  do  you  ? 

1 .  My  dear  madam,  you  know  not  God  ;  you  know  not 
yourself ;  you  know  not  the  revelation  he  has  given  us  ;  you 
know  nothing  on  the  subject,  as  I  must  kindly  but  solemnly 
assure  you  I  Nor  is  your  hope  any  hope  at  all.  It  is  merely 
a  presumptuous  conjecture,  a  vain  and  infidel  hypothesis, 
founded  on  unbelief — "  if  there  is  any  hereafter  !"     Tell  me 


REMONSTRANCE  AND  WARNING.         315 

plainly,  as  a  friend,  though  a  stranger.  How  much  of  the 
New  Testament  have  you  ever  attentively  read,  in  all  your 
life  ? 

2.  Oh  I  I  leave  all  that  to  the  clergy,  sir.  I  never  care 
for  it. 

1.  You  speak,  madam,  as  I  perceive,  at  least  four  differ- 
ent languages  of  Europe.  To  these  you  have  attended,  and 
you  understand  them.  But  to  the  revealed  truth  of  God  you 
have  not  attended,  and  you  know  it  not.  I  must  then  sol- 
emnly testify  to  you  that  your  delusion  is  dense  and  tremen- 
dous. It  is  no  more  Christianity  than  Voltairism  or  Islam- 
ism  is  I  And  now,  if  God  spares  you  longer  on  the  earth,  I 
would  kindly  beseech  you  to  repent  of  your  sins,  and  seek 
God  till  you  find  him  ;  to  read  the  Holy  Scriptures  in  faith, 
and  with  prayer  for  divine  illumination  ;  and  to  let  the  past 
time  of  your  life  suffice  you  to  have  lived  for  this  world  in 
chase  of  shadows,  in  frequency  Avith  the  vain,  the  gay,  the 
godless,  and  the  wicked  !  It  is  all  your  own  fault  that  yoH 
know  not  God^for  you  have  the  means  of  knowing  him  ; 
and  you  are  well  endowed  with  the  faculties  that  might  u.5e 
those  means  ;  and  had  you  used  them  aright,  you  might  now 
have  not  hypothesis,  adventure,  presumption,  for  your  hope  ; 
but  the  very  hope  of  the  gospel,  authentic,  divine,  and  never 
deceptive,  to  adorn  your  character,  to  soothe  your  soul,  to  as- 
sure your  mind,  to  comfort  your  heart,  and  to  abolisJt  death, 
in  the  beatitude  of  your  glorilied  experience,  as  you  make  the 
sublime  and  the  wonderful  transition  from  this  vestibule  of 
probation  into  that  temple  of  eternal  glory.  These  are  the 
thitigs  that  are  i/nsee/i  and  eternal. 

2.  Oh  I  sir,  how  you  preach  I  Is  that  the  way  in  Amer- 
ica ? 

1.  I  must  bid  you  farewell,  madam.  I  shall  see  you  again 
in  eternity,  where  your  memory  will  have  recorded  this  scene 
and  several  others — of  your  whole  life  I  Till  then  it  is  very 
certain  we  shall  never  meet  again.     I  only  add,  to  what  I 


316  INTERVIEW  CONCLUDED. 

have  told  you  already,  that  God  has  made  you  an  account- 
able creatine  ;  that  you  are  under  the  jurisdiction  of  his  law, 
nut  a  particle  of  which,  in  the  spirit  of  its  pertect  righteous- 
ness, have  you  ever  obeyed  once  in  your  whole  lile ;  that, 
as  a  sinner  before  him,  you  need  infinitely  his  mercy  and 
his  grace  in  Jesus  Christ ;  that  except  you  turn  to  him,  and 
obey  the  gospel,  you  will  perish  forever ;  that,  though  you 
have  lived  among  flatterers  in  this  world,  no  one  will  flatter 
you  in  that  which  is  to  come  ;  and  that,  having  reached  al- 
ready, as  I  judge,  the  age  of  threescore,  you  can  not  expect 
the  residue  of  your  years  to  be  many  ;  while,  with  such  ap- 
preciation, I  have  sincerely  commiserated  your  condition  and 
the  very  happiness  in  which  you  seem  to  glory,  knowing  its 
nature,  its  deceit,  its  triviality,  and  its  transientness.  I  can 
do  no  more — 1  pray  you,  think  me  not  your  enemy  because  I 
Juive  told  you  the  truth.  I  commend  you  to  the  sovereign 
mercy  of  God,  and  say  once  more,  madam,  solemnly,  fare- 
well, till  we  meet  at  the  jiidgment-scat  of  Christ  I 

Here  I  bowed,  and  left  her.  My  time  coerced  me,  or  I, 
should  have  loved  to  stay  and  to  pray  with  her.  Her  air 
was  mainly  that  of  saucy  wonder  and  curiosity,  half  reserved, 
half  respectful,  and  sometimes  for  a  moment  almost  confid- 
ing. Now,  with  a  fashionable  courtly  laugh,  she  tried  to 
parry  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  in  the  words  of  his  own 
truth  ;  and  now  she  seemed  taken  all  aback  with  its  sudden 
thunder  or  its  lightning  flash  in  an  unsuspected  quarter.  On 
the  whole,  I  said,  what  is  a  fashionable  lady  1  Are  these 
her  accomplishments,  that  leave  her  spirit  so  unfurnished, 
and  so  clo\Miish,  toward  heaven  ?  There  is  no  adulation,  no 
blandishments  of  fashion,  no  soft  airs  of  compliment  and  hom- 
age to  ladyship  or  the  sex.  Spirits  have  no  sex,  persons  no 
respect,  in  judgment.  There  fools  are  exposed,  as  such,  and 
see  themselves,  while  others  see  them  just  as  they  are  in  the 
sight  of  God.  There  they  are  punished,  too,  ^i■it]l■  everlasting 
destruction  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord  and  from  the  glory 


RKASONS  FOR  KKCOKUING  IT.  317 

of  his  poivcr,  ivhen  he  shall  come  to  be  glorified  in  his 
SAINTS,  and  to  be  admired  in  all  them  that  believe. 

I  cite  this  instance,  this  example,  of  the  atheism  of  the 
fashionable  world,  the  bean  monde  of  the  aspirations  of  the 
millions  of  mankiird,  not  as  a  rare  case,  or  an  exception,  or  a 
monster  extraordinary  in  that  doomed  sphere,  but  for  a  very 
opposite  reason.  It  is  an  example  of  it,  an  exponent,  a  spec- 
imen. The  forms,  the  degrees,  the  exterior  ornaments,  all 
differ  inimitably  ;  as  the  new  juxtapositions,  and  phases,  and 
beauties  of  pebbles  in  the  kaleidoscope,  with  its  infinite  vari- 
ety of  scenic  display  and  the  poor  glory  of  its  reflecting  sur- 
faces, seen  in  the  light  of  heaven — that  is,  of  the  natural  sun. 
But  open  the  instrument,  analyze  its  glories,  and  discourse 
with  its  colored  stones  and  its  angular  surfaces  of  glass  I  So 
this  world,  when  making  for  its  dupes  all  the  heaven  of  their 
being  or  their  ambition  I  They  are  like  children,  dancing 
and  rampant,  under  the  power  of  exhilarating  gas.  They 
have  no  reflection,  no  forecast,  no  deep  conviction,  no  moral 
sincerity.  They  prefer  to  be  deceived,  as  really  as  the  devil 
to  deceive  them.  And  God,  so  long  insulted  and  ofiended, 
needs  only  to  give  them  up  to  their  own  vanity  and  impiety, 
and  they  become  the  maddened  architects  of  their  own  de- 
struction. He  has  described  them  fully  in  his  word  ;  warn- 
ed them  honestly  and  perfectly  ;  and  they,  in  their  very  folly 
and  infatuation,  vindicate  the  truthfulness  of  their  moral  biog- 
raphy as  recorded  by  inspired  pens,  and  precipitate  the  dam- 
nation of  their  destiny. 

Let  God  speak,  and  let  mortals  that  are  immortal  hear  his 
own  unalterable  words — 

But  the  statural  man  reccivcth  not  the  things  of  iJte 
Spirit  of  God  ;  for  they  are  foolishness  to  him  ;  neither 
can  he  knoiv  them,,  because  they  are  sjnrituaUy  discerned. 

But  the  things  of  the  devil  are  his  wisdom,  his  creed,  his 
oracle  I  A  man  without  revelation,  and  one  with  it,  who 
utterly  neglects  it,  are  both  in  this   condemned   category  ; 


318  PASSAGES    OF    SCUIPTLRE. 

only  that  the  latter  is  the  far  guiltier  person  in  the  eight  of 
God.  Yet,  remaining  such,  they  both  hate  the  light ;  folly 
is  their  wisdom,  error  their  truth,  and  hell  at  last  their  com- 
mon home.  Let  not  the  reader  indulge  a  sneer.  Hell  is  a 
revealed  fact.  And  is  it  philosophical  to  care  so  much  for 
the  word  and  so  little  for  the  thing  ?  or  is  it  indeed  folly 
what  God  says  ? 

Because  the  foolishness  of  God  is  wiser  than  men  ;  and. 
the  weakness  of  God  is  stronger  tlian  meti. 

Men  practically  feel  as  if  they  were  both  stronger,  and  es- 
pecially wiser,  than  he  ;  and  this  caustic  and  terrible  irony 
of  the  reigning  Lord  God  omnipotent,  the  only  wise  God, 
touches  not  their  sensihilities.  If  voluntarily  stupid  in  time, 
however,  they  shall  be  involuntarily  intelligent  and  well-in- 
formed in  eternity.  Devils  believe  and  tremble  ;  and  they 
are  not  atheists  at  all. 

Be  not  deceived ;  God  is  not  mocked;  for  whatsoever 
a  man  soiceth,  that  shall  he  also  reap.  For  he  that  soweth 
to  his  flesh,  shall  of  the  flesh  reap  corruption  ;  but  he  that 
soiceth  to  the  Spirit,  shall  of  the  Spnrit  reap  life  everlasting. 

What  a  harvest  is  corruption,  lor  some  sowers  !  and  here 
set  in  full  contrariety  and  antithesis  with  salvation,  or  life 
everlasting.  Do  men  sow  cockle,  and  expect  to  reap  bar- 
ley ?  or  darnel,  in  hope  of  a  crop  of  wheat  ?  And,  continu- 
ing in  sin  and  vmbelief,  do  they  anticipate  heaven  as  their 
proper  reward  ?  If  so,  God  is  not  mocked  in  the  end  ;  they 
are  deceived  to  their  own  perdition. 

Tliey  Jiave  Moses  and  the  prophets  ;  let  them  hear  them; 
if  they  hear  not  Moses  and  the  prophets,  ?ieither  will  they 
be  persuaded,  though  one  rose  froin  the  dead. 

When  our  blessed  Redeemer  uttered  these  words,  not  one 
letter  of  the  New  Testament  was  ■written.  If,  then,  the 
scorners  of  the  former,  the  negleciers  o[  Moses  and  the  proph- 
ets, were  so  guilty,  so  inexcusable,  so  forlorn  in  their  peril, 
and  without  all  resource  in  their  madness,  ivhat  shall  the  end 


RECAPITULATION    OF    THE    HOPE.  319 

be  of  them  that  obey  not  the  gospel  of  God  ?  that  de- 
spise, and  atheistically  Ibigct,  not  Moses  and  the  prophets 
only,  but  also,  with  them,  as  making  one  great  revelation, 
from  God,  Christ,  and  the  apostles,  and  the  evangel- 
ists ?  Beside,  now  ONE  is  uisen  from  the  dead,  and  be- 
come tlie  first-fruits  of  them  that  slept.  Hence  the  crime 
of  such  a  hope  as  that  fashionable  lady  alone  could  cher- 
ish, of  her  selfish  and  sin-blinded  self  It  is  the  gnomon  of 
all  the  hope  of  fashion's  dupes  and  victims,  the  greatest  fools 
in  the  universe  I  a  hope  compounded  of  self-deception,  habits 
of  alienation  i'rom  God,  sheer  infidelity,  vanity,  presumption, 
massive  ignorance,  and  the  iron-bound  folly  of  all  grace-aban- 
doned and  incorrigible  reprobates.  There  is  no  use,  and  no 
sense,  in  touching  such  "  delicate  subjects"  only  with  fine 
silk  or  elegant  white  kid  gloves  I  Enough  of  all  that  homi- 
cidal kindness. 

For  if  the  word  spoken  by  angels  was  steadfast,  and  ev- 
ery transgression  and  disobedience  received  a  just  recom- 
pense of  reward,  how  shall  we  escape,  if  we  neglect  so 
GREAT  salvation,  tclilch  at  the  first  began  to  be  spoken — 
not  by  angels,  but  by  their  superior  and  commander,  by  the 
Lord  ;  confirmed  to  us  by  them  tJiat  heard  him  ;  God  also 
bearing  them  icitncss,  both  u-ith  signs  and  iconders,  and 
xvith  diverse  miracles  and  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  accord- 
ing to  his  oivn  will. 

In  all  this,  I  pray  the  reader  honestly  to  learn  what  the 
hope  is  of  the  fashionable  world  : 

♦     *     *     «     *  gt  crimine  ab  uno 
Disce  omnes : 

And  from  one  specimen  of  polish'd  crime, 

Learn  all  their  characters,  for  hope  sublime  ; 

Lost  in  undone  eternity  and  cursed  by  Heaven  in  time. 

[l^F^The  hope  of  the  fashionable  and  the  worldly ._£jj 
If  there  is  any  hereafter,  i  shall  be  safe  enough  ; 

BECAUSE  I  never.  DID  ANY  THING   WRONG,  AND  I  NEVER    HAD 


320  SOLKMMTY    OF    Slfll    AN    EXAMl'LE. 

BUT   ONE  VAULT  IN  ALL   MY  LIFE  ;    AND  THAT  FAULT  CONSISTS 
SIMPLY   IN   THIS ALWAYS   BEING   TOO   GOOD  AND  TOO   KIND  TO 

EVERY  BODY,  as  all  my  Iriends  know  and  say  ol"  me. 

What  need  now  of  the  Bible,  the  Lord's  day,  the  ordinan- 
ces of  public  worship,  or  the  practice  of  true  religion  ?  What 
need  even  of 

Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified  ? 

O  earth,  earth,  earth,  hear  the  ivord  of  tJie  Loi'd. 

Quam  difficile,  quam  rarum,  ut  homo,  muliere  natus,  se 
ipsum  cognoscat  I — which  we  render,  or  rather  paraphrase, 
in  its  spiritual,  in  its  religious,  in  its  eternal  and  divine  rela- 
tions, thus : 

How  difficult  the  problem,  hence  how  rare, 
To  know  one's  moral  self!  t'  escape  the  snare 
That  fascinates  the  pilgrim  on  his  road — 
Devious  from  truth,  from  virtue,  and  from  God ; 
That  takes  the  million,  graceless  and  forlorn  ; 
Threatening  each  sinful  child  of  woman  born  : 
Pride,  love  of  ease,  procrastination's  sway, 
Nourish  their  madness  and  pervert  their  way ; 
Custom  and  fashion  add  their  potent  spell ; 
They  quaff  the  poisoned  nectar,  like  it  well, 
And  brook  no  honesty  the  truth  to  tell. 
Till — soon — aghast,  each  knows  himself — in  heU! 


NOTES  OMITTED  IN  THEIR  PLACE. 

Page  38,  11th  line  from  bottom,  after  word  Bruen,  "  The  late  Rev. 
Matthias  Bruen,  A.M.  first  Pastor  of  the  Bleecker  Street  Presbyteri- 
an Church,  New  York." 

Page  115,  8th  line  from  bottom,  after  word  award,  "The  Book  of 
the  Synod  of  New  York  and  New  Jersey,  on  the  Division  of  the  Pres 
byterian  Church,  so  well  and  wisely  wTitten  by  Rev.  Dr.  Judd,  Octo 
ber,  1852,  is  the  only  authority  to  which  I  need  here  refer  the  reader.' 


RUNNING  INDEX. 


Inscription — Preliminary  Reflections Page  5 

A  packed  jury,  5  ;  Liberties  taken,  7 ;  Another  volume  possible,  8  ; 
A  faulty  world,  9 ;  Indifference  is  enmity,  10 ;  Texts  from  Prov- 
erbs, 11  ;  Sin  gloomy,  12;  The  religion  of  fools,  13;  Reading  for 
all,  15;  Reference  to  Chalmers,  16;  Results  and  motives,  17; 
Emrrionsism,  19 ;  Terms  of  communion,  20  ;  Sinners  quite  too 
dis— interested,  22  ;  Humility  in  office,  23  ;  The  diaconate,  24  ; 
Christianity  forever  rmpartial,  25  ;  Illustrious  ignorance,  26  ;  Hope 
for  our  country,  and  promise  of  future  good,  27. 

I.  HoR/E  Chalmerian^ 29 

Greatness,  32  ;  Two  providences,  33  ;  Hearing  Chalmers,  35  ;  His 
broad  Scotch,  36  ;  Compliment  from  Mason,  38 ;  Strictures  on  his 
sermon,  41 ;  Frank  manners,  43 ;  His  composing,  44  ;  Topics,  45 ; 
Breakfast  at  Waterloo  Hall,  47;  Address  of  Rev.  Dr.  Peddie,  48  ; 
Pragmaticalness,  49  ;  Episcopal  Dissenters,  50  ;  Cozy  interview — 
Ignorance  of  America,  52  ;  His  beau  ideal  of  a  visit  to  us,  53  ;  Re- 
sults of  the  voluntary  principle,  55  ;  Going  to  Kentucky,  57;  Views 
on  slavery,  58;  Vile  habit  of  the  English,  59;  Establishments,  61; 
No  go  in  America,  63  ;  Our  temperance  reform,  65  ;  Our  mis- 
sions, 67 ;  Our  guessing,  68  ;  Dr.  Ewing  and  Dr.  Johnson,  70  ;  Our 
education,  71  ;  Chalmers  after  the  disruption,  73  ;  Church  wars, 
75 ;  Erastianism,  77  ;  Great  steamers  turn  slowly,  78  ;  Chalmers' 
fireside,  79  ;  Scene  at  family  prayer,  80  ;  His  tenderness,  81  ; 
British  rector — Difficult  text,  83  ;  Exposition  in  the  pulpit,  85  ; 
Walk  after  breakfast  at  Morningside,  87 ;  The  Presbytery's  in- 
truder. 88 ;  Appointed  interview,  90  ;  Our  divines,  91 ;  Edwards 
on  the  will,  95  ;  Our  Presbyterian  disruption,  96 ;  Causes,  97 , 
Remedy  worse  than  disease,  103  ;  Views  of  exscinders,  105 , 
Ours  in  contrast,  109;  Calvin,  111;  No  reunion,  113;  Message 


324  RUNNING    INDEX. 

from  Chalmers — Geese  and  swans,  114;  Supper  and  decanters, 
116;  His  concession,  118;  Opinion  of  Henry  Clay,  121;  Preach- 
ing at  Burk's  Close,  122 ;  The  poor  in  cities,  123 ;  Morrisonian- 
ism,  126  ;  Sudden  call,  128  ;  A  voluntary  appendix,  131  ;  Fears 
about  it,  133;  His  chirography,  135;  His  estimate  of  puseyism, 
137;  Preference,  138;  Letter  to  Dr.  Smyth,  140;  His  views  of 
slavery,  141 ;  'Deliverance'  of  tlie  American  Board,  142. 

II.  Interview  with  Rev.  Dr.  Emmons 145 

His  age,  148;  His  views,  151  ;  Colloquy,  153;  New  York  vs.  Frank- 
lin, 155;  Interpretation,  157;  His  way,  159;  Selfishness,  160; 
Self-love,  161;  Confession,  162;  Old  disciple,  164;  The  doctor's 
hope,  165;  '  My  theology,'  167;  'In  itself  considered,'  169;  Dia- 
gram, 170 ;  Not  Calvinism,  171  ;  Organum  theologicum,  172 ;  A 
lawyer  grown  wiser,  173  ;  Optimism,  174  ;  Sincere  offer,  175 ; 
Common  sense,  176;  Useful  distinction,  179;  Modes  and  facts, 

-  181  ;  Quotations,  182 ;  Autlior  of  sin,  183  ;  Blunders  in  texts, 
185;  Christ  our  head,  187;  Reasons  for  self-love,  188;  Duty  re- 
sulting from  no  relation,  how  to  be  met,  190,  191  ;  Anecdote,  192  ; 
Dialogue,  194  ;  Holy  willingness — to  sin,  197;  Paul,  accursed  from 
Christ,  197;  Remarks  on  it,  200  ;  Desperation  of  the  ungodly,  204; 
'Anh — Stuart  objects,  207 ;  Practical  views,  208  ;  Dreariness  of 
Emmonsism — heartless,  mechanical,  trashy,  211 ;  Attestation,  212. 

III.  Interview  with  John  Quincy  Adams 213 

Suggestions,  215  ;  Two  concessions,  217  ;   His  visit  to  his  father, 
219;  The  chaplain  of  the  Brandywine,  221  ;  Human  nature,  222; 
Religion — His  inaugural,  223  ;  Vanity  of  the  clergy,  225 ;  Spirit- 
uality, 227  ;   Future  punishment,  230  ;  Atheism,  232  ;  Venture  in 
rhj-me,  234 ;  Prophecy,  236 ;  Rev.  Drs.  Spring  and  Wilson,  237 
Watts'  H>-mns,  238 ;  Unsound  preachers,  239  ;  Truth  exchisive 
241  ;  Entertaining  matters,  242  ;  Inspiration,  244  ;  Next  morning 
245 ;  Kindness  of  the  president,  246 ;  Anecdote  of  John  Adams 
in  Spain,  247 ;  Order  and  freedom,  249  ;   Selfish  liberality,  250 
Views  of  the  Trinity,  251  ;  Mystery,  253 ;  Proof-text  in  baptism 
255 ;   Personal  devil,  256 ;   Mystery  of  the  Mediterranean,  260 
Mysteries  in  heaven,  261  ;   His  pecuhar  way,  262;  'As  a  dove,' 
265  ;   Placability — Major  Andre,  266 ;  Newport  and  Providence, 
868  ;  His  address  to  the  Bible  Society,  270-273. 


RUNNING    INDEX.  325 

IV.  Intervikw  with  two  Pseudo-Apostles 275 

Imposture,  279;  Hot  day,  280;  Sudden  approacli,  281  ;  Who  they 
vvcie,  284  ;  Fanatical  hopes,  285  ;  Apostles,  286  ;  Their  creden- 
tials, 287;  Their  confid(Mil  warnings,  289  ;  Perplexed,  290  ;  Abus- 
ive and  self-refuted,  291;  Outrage  and  exodus,  292;  Utah,  293; 
Charity  for  folly  and  sin,  295  ;  Apostolic  charity,  296  ;  Conclusion, 
299. 

V.   Interview  with  a  kashion.\ble  Lady,  Calais,  France 301 

Grief  of  Christians,  303 ;  Sail  from  Dover,  305 ;  Dining  at  Calais,  307 ; 
The  Lady,  prima  doiina  of  the  scene,  308  ;  Recollections  of  his- 
tory, 309 ;  La  diligence  and  malle-post,  310  ;  Converse  on  the  pi- 
azza, 311 ;  Our  climates  in  America,  312  ;  Religion,  a  queer  thing 
to  her,  313;  Her  very  remarkable  hope,  314;  My  remonstrance, 
315  ;  Reflections  and  texts,  318  ;  More  like  her,  319  ;  Final  catas- 
trophe of  fashionable  fools,  320. 


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.r 


>-^  ■^'   — The  literary  world  has  cracky 

J  jokes,  the  past  month,  and  indul^elPin ' 
many  a  hearty  gvift'aw  over  the  Interviews 
Meiiioral'lc  and  Useful,  from  Diary  and 
Memory]  hy  Rev.  Samuel  Hanson  Cox, 
1).  I  >.  Eut  the  doctor  is  as  unconscious  of 
his  aniusini;  pedantry  as  parson" JAiraham 
Adam.s,  and  he  reminds  us  strongly  of  that 
best  of  parsons  by  his^turdy,  hearty,  and 
simple-minded  boldness  in  saying  what 
he  thinks,  in  his  own  ^^'ay,  let  the  world 
laugh  at  him  as  it  will.  The  Doctor's 
style  is  none  of  the  best,  and  his  memory  | 
may  sometimes  play  him  false  in  relating 
his  interviews,  but  he  is  always  self-poised 
and  original,  and  just  as  sure  of  beiug 
exactly  right  in  every  thing  he  may 
choose  to  do,  or  believe,  as  ever  Davy 
Crocket  was,  when  he  had  determined  to 
go  ahead.  Let  the  Doctor  appear  toothers 
as  he  may.  he  always  appears  to  himself 
with  as  palpable  a  nimbus  round  his  head 
3  as  ever  encircled  the  crown  of  a  saint. 
I  To  have  so  comfortable  an  opinion  of  one's  | 
.ffi^  is  better  than  a  fortune.  The  state 
*  TOTroind  which  the  author  must  enjoy  wio 
could  have  written  such  dedications,  aiSI 
published  such  poetry,  any  poor  mortal ; 
might  Qxxvy.  Those  who  laugh  at  the 
Doctor  have  all  their  merriment  to  them- 
selves ;  he  Avould  as  soon  suspect  the 
world  of  laughing  at  the  ponderous  tower 
of  his  brown  stone  church,  as  j^his 
solemnly-intended  utterances.  Yet  the 
Doctor  is  by  no  means  lacking  in  a  pereep-' 
tion  of  humor,  as  his  most  amusing  descrip- 
tion of  the  maimer  of  Dr.  Chalmers  in  the 
pulpit  can  testify  ;  but  no  one  who  reads 
the  "  Interviews"  will  suspect  the  author 
of  that  strange  volume  of  entertaining  a 
suspicion  that  there  is  any  thing  either 
peculiar  or  humorous  in  his  own  manner. 


I  —  -^ 

-writer  in   the  Ohrislian  Rt:[/is(ev  tV^ 

ccB^cisoH  a  sertnou  recently  preached  by  the 

Lev.  Dr.  Co.^,  late  of  Brooklyn. 
"How  shall  I  describe  tho^sorraon  of  the 
Hev.  Dr.  Cox,  delivered  before  the  3Iill8 
Theological  Society?  "f><couId  thiuk  of  no- 
thing but  a  four-horse  otiinibtM,  somewhat 
floridly  painted  and  ambitiously  ornamented, 
driven  around  the  streets,  turning  corners 
with  grand  flourishes  of  the  whip  and  shouts 
at  the  leaders,  picking  up  a  passenger  here 
and  there,  and  after  giving  him  a  brief  air- 
"•^■'^dropping  him,  and  driving  the  spanking 
*||ii^r:«w  home  at  last,  with  not  a  hair  wet 
'   '  '-m  them,  and  not  more  than  half  satisfied 

i-.;Ji  their  exercise.  I  have  not  the  slight- 
est idea  that  the  Doctor  knew  what  he  was 
going  to  say  when  he  arose,  and,  but  for  his 
almost  unexampled  memory,  I  should  doubt 
whether  he  knew  what  he  had  said  when  he 
finished.  It  seemed  to  me  like  a  sermon 
that  might  be  represented  as  a  railroad  car 
that  had  been  thrown  from  the  track,  under 
a  high  rate  of  speed,  smashed  in  pieces,  and 
then  gathered  up  in  fragments,  just  in  those 
chance  relations  into  which  accident  had 
thrown  them.  The  materials  of  a  complete 
and  beautiful  car  were  there,  (with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  brakes,)  but  they  were  hauled 
out  of  the  mass,  and  put  together  very  much 
like  those  cattle  that  Dr.  Todd  tells  the 
children  about,  as  the  inhabitants  of  a 
chance  world.  The  sermon  was  learned, 
poetical,  disjointed,  pedantic,  powerfuf," bril- 
liant, humorous,  witty,  explosive,  redun- 
dant, English,  Greek,  Latin,  and  Dr.  Coxy.", 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Libraries 


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